1 





























in 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



Chap, Copyright No. 

Shelf_j"B-fiT 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE 

EVOLUTION THEORY 



As Stated by M. Le Conte and applied by Dr. Lyman Abbott 

Unsupported by the phenomena of the World 

as Far as We are able to know It. 



A HISTORICAL AND SCIENTIFIC EXAMINATION OF THE 

CLAIMS OF EVOLUTIONISTS, AS THEY 

ARE SET FORTH IN 



The Evolution of Christianity. 



FRANCIS M. BRUNER. 



The Kenyon Printing & Mfg. Co 

Des Moines, Iowa. 

1900. 



42857 

Library of Cong 

"•wo Coras Received 
SEP 4 1900 

S£CONOCOPV. 

OflOtaWYISiON, 
SEP 5 1900 



37^ 



COPYRIGHT APPLIED FOR 
AUGUST 4, 1900. 



74141 



Mel fat V;XV^«W %/A*V 
fated**, /U^?*d^, &U^>L^- 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



BY D. R. DUNGAN, A. M., LL. D. 



J 
The author of this work, Francis M. Bruner, was one of the first 

scholars of this country. Being much more than a graduate in literature 
and science at home, he went abroad and spent several years in Germany 
and France, perfecting his knowledge in the literature, science and philos- 
ophy of Europe. He possessed both an inquiring and an independent 
mind. He was ready to accept new truth, but not till it had proved itself. 
He had no taste for theories, guesses and speculations till it had been 
shown by careful induction of facts that they were well founded. He 
subjected everything to the most careful scrutiny and the most rigid test. 
He had the same treatment for all hypotheses candidating for public favor . 
They were only to be retained after they had been tried by the fire of 
severest criticism. His thought-habit was laborious, and no subject was 
abandoned till he felt sure that there was nothing more to be said either for 
or against. He did not pause because of difficulties, but worked the harder 
to overcome them. He thought in clear perspicuous English. I recom- 
mend this book to all lovers of pure speech. It is a fine contribution to 
American literature, and will be delighted in, not only for its potency of 
thought but for its elegance in forceful statement. 

THE PREPARATION was elaborate and expensive. For many years 
Professor Bruner had studied, rather devoured, the best works on Criticism, 
Psychology, Metaphysics. He was especially familiar with the best 
religious thought of the age. He was for many years a teacher in our 
colleges, and read extensively on every branch considered in his class 
room. In this way the terms employed by the great leaders of thought 



and controversy became as familiar to him as table talk. But after the 
long preparation, when it was time for him to write, he was stricken down, 
and for years was unable to get out of his room without help. But he was 
determined that the work of his life should not go for nothing. So he called 
a competent amanuensis, and talked the book we here introduce to you. 

THE TOPIC OR TOPICS FOR CONSIDERATION. -When you read 
the table of contents you wonder if you will find any interest in the discus- 
sion which is to follow. That will depend upon your advancement and 
taste for knowledge. 

He who poses as a thinker or preacher without having studied the sub- 
ject considered here, is a trifler. Hence the thinkers of the age are going 
to read this book. It is the latest, clearest, and safest of all yet offered to 
the student. The facts and conclusions here presented are not for them- 
selves, nor can they abide alone. The whole scheme of revelation, and 
God's plan of reaching and controlling the human heart in his effort to 
uplift and save, have vital kinship with this question. 

The theory combatted is that all developments are objective, in that 
they are the result of the soul's action, or the forces within, and therefore 
fix and fasten on things without ; and yet return to affect that power from 
which they sprang. This last would be subjective. But all the improve- 
ments and growth must originate within. 

The author shows that the evolutionary formula does not hold true in 
nature or in revelation. The grain of corn has not life in itself; the life 
has come from another source. Even then it must have the helps of soil 
and sunshine or remain undeveloped. And as to the uplift of the race, the 
truth for faith and all the motives for action come from without. Grant 
that there must be a corresponding sense within or there would be no soil 
for faith, or hope, or love, it remains a fact that the truth to be believed and 
the heaven to be desired come to the mind from without and not from 
within. 



Chapter I. 
Criticism of the Evolutionary Formula. 

Chapter II. 

Criticism of the Application of the Evolutionary 
Formula. 

Chapter III. 

The Evolutionary Theory that "All Life, including 
the Religious Life, is Subject to the Law of Contin- 
uous Progressive Change, According to Certain 
Laws, and by Means of Resident Forces," Shown 
to Have No Support in the History of Heathenism, 

1. In the Degeneration of the Intellect. 

Sec, 1. In Mythology. 
Se£. 2. In Philosophy. 

2. In the Degeneration of the Sensibilities. 

Chapter IV. 

The Antagonism of the Three Great World Spirits 
Makes the Conception of the Life of God and His 
Spirit in Universal Humanity a Rationally Impossible 
Conception. 

Chapter V. 

The Divine Method of Imparting Spiritual Life to the 
Soul of Man 



CHAPTER I. 



CRITICISM OF THE EVOLUTIONARY FORMULA. 

Dr. Tholuck, of the Royal University of Halle, Prus- 
sia, frequently warned his students against the danger of 
thoughtless familiarity with the so-called philosophies, 
so generally read in those times of reckless speculation. 
On one occasion he spoke particularly of the pantheism 
of Spinoza; and among other things said: "This philos- 
ophy is like the lion's den ; there are many tracks going 
in, and but few coming out." 

The influence of a false assumption upon the de- 
velopment of the mind and life of him who holds it, cannot 
be considered too thoughtfully; especially, when it is re- 
membered that that influence goes out to shape the de- 
velopment of the minds and lives of others. The relation 
of the theory of evolution, as stated and applied, by Dr. 
Lyman Abbott in the Evolution of Christianity, to the 
objective method and teachings of our Bible, is one of 
those dangerous applications of an unsettled question 
that ought not to pass unchallenged. The reputation of 
the author in the literary and ecclesiastical world lends 
the book a certain sanction, that will secure for it an in- 
troduction to a wide circle of readers. And this is my 
reason for replying to an argument, put forward in the 
over-confidence borrowed from others, to whom the 



10 THE E VOLUTION THEOR Y 

author surrenders his own judgment, and accepts theirs, 
as experts in science ; and, excuses his surrender of his own 
mental independence by avowing his ignorance of the 
scientific grounds on which the theory of evolution rests, 
as though the scientists had exclusive control of these 
grounds. Is it impossible for others to comprehend what 
these gentlemen know? Has one department of science 
so great supremacy over all the others that it can com- 
mand the acceptance of its universal assumptions and ask 
them to humbly wait while the experts prove that they 
are true, nay more, ask that these unproven "assump- 
tions be accepted tentatively, until the experts reach their 
final judgment." Has knowledge lost its unity? Have 
not other sciences some of the evidences that must enter 
into this final judgment? Or is the, thinking of the world 
to be unsettled, revolutionized, in the interest of an 
unproven theory? Dr. Tholuck says in his Glaub- 
wnrdigkeit der Ewangelischen Geschichte, that Straus 
and his associates in the rationalistic treatment of the 
Holy Scriptures, boast that they are standing on the 
apex of time, yet have no eye for the fact, that still over 
the mountain, also, people are living. Must the Chris- 
tian church be made the dumping ground of all unsettled 
theories? Is it consistent with the sacred trust of a 
sentinel on the walls of Zion to accept unproven theories 
from those without, who even deny the Christian's God, 
and in some cases are contented to not know whether 
there is a God or not — accept the theories of such men, I 
say, and teach them to the people, instead of "the un- 
adulterated milk of the word." Yes, go the extreme of 
repeating with approval the declaration of Le Conte that 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 11 

"the law of evolution is far more certain than the law of 
gravitation." 

But the author can state his position and purpose for 
himself. He says : "Le Conte defines evolution as 'con- 
tinuous propressive change,' according to certain laws and 
by means of resident forces. Religion is the life of God 
in the soul of man. It is my object to show that the 
Christian religion is itself an evolution ; that is, that this 
life of God in humanity is one of continuous progressive 
changes according to certain divine laws, and by means of 
forces, or a force, resident in humanity. The proposi- 
tion is a very simple one." 

We had better inquire whether it is so simple or not. 
It is a universal proposition, for it applies to "man" or 
"humanity." Such a proposition can be true only when 
its conditions are all fulfilled. Besides the proposition 
itself is involved, — it has so many particulars, e. g., con- 
tinuous change, progressive change (from lower to 
higher, into something new). The theory will fail 
therefore, whenever one of these conditions is not fulfilled 
"According to certain laws" may mean anything. Ac- 
coidingly, the life of God, the life of man, the life of i 
pjr>nt and the material universe are included under t he- 
operation of the general proposition. Again these con- 
tinuous progressive changes, according to certain laws, 
must occur by means of resident forces. In science a force 
becomes a law; and besides, if the force is external, then 
the evolutionary hypothesis fails ; external forces are not 
"resident." 

The conditions of this proposition are not fulfilled 
by any part of the human race. They do not describe 



12 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

the phenomena of the material universe. Six thousand 
years of history fail to present the phenomena required 
by this hypothesis in the material universe so far as we 
know it, in the life of plants, in the corporeal life of 
animals and men and in the life of the soul. The con- 
ception of evolution presented in this formula is very 
different from that of development. Development, say 
of the mind, is the result of external forces which reach 
it through the teacher, the book, or through the external 
world acting upon the senses. The phenomena of the 
mind in perceiving, knowing, judging, classifying and 
generalizing are exhibitions of some of the growing 
activities of the intellect. The Evolution of Christianity 
admits that it is personal influence that forms character. 
But personal influence is external, and the formation of 
character is one of the most desirable results about which 
the Evolution of Christianity could be expected to be 
concerned. The assumption of the personal presence of 
God, of the life of God, of his laws, etc., within, in the 
soul are gratuitous assumptions, therefore, and can have 
no value, except as they furnish conditions, which con- 
form to the requirements of the evolutionary hypothesis. 
The necessity of establishing: a universal internal condition 
with which to begin the e volution of man, forced these 
assumptions into the application of the theory at the out- 
set ; and hence the existence of "the life of God in the 
soul of humanity" is assumed upon the authority of some 
one not named and the evolutionary formula is accepted 
upon the authority of Le Conte. But this assumption of 
subsidiary conditions reminds one of the man who pro- 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 13 

vided for the progress of an army by assuming the exist- 
ence of bridges over the rivers. 

The indefinable uncertainty of the terms of the 
evolutionary formula permits the assumption of numer- 
ous subsidiary conceptions equally indefinable. The 
personality of God is not an objective reality after it 
enters the service of evolution. "God and man are in 
very essence one." "God and man are inextricably woven 
together, so that they cannot be separated." "The divine 
purity has come into a turbid stream and can purify only 
by being itself indistinguishably combined with the im- 
pure." 

Likewise, the laws of God no longer have an ex- 
ternal objective expression. "The laws of my nature are 
the laws of God's own nature — they are wought into the 
very fiber and structure of the human soul — they are in- 
herent in the nature of man and inherent in the nature of 
God ; so absolute and so inviolable, that if we could con- 
ceive that God himself were dethroned and ceased to ex- 
ist, law would still go on throughout eternity unless 
nature itself were dissolved into anarchy." This is cer- 
tainly the danger point of lawless assumption. But it 
furnishes the theory with "certain laws," and they are 
"resident." 

The vagueness of the theory allows its universal 
application but requires the assumption that the life of 
God is identical zvith all other kinds of life. The Evolu- 
tion of Christianity supposes that the life of God is in the 
soul and makes it conform to the same theory, just as 
any other kind of life. It says : "This life of God in 
humanity is one of continuous progressive change." 



14 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

Why change the life of God? The working out of the 
evolutionary theory requires that man and God should 
be "in essence one," and, hence the life of God entered into 
"the anhml man." 

Having located "certain laws" and "a force" in the 
soul it became necessary to account for the effects of 
evolution. They, too, are in the soul. Nothing is external. 
Revelation is the unveiling in consciousness of that which 
God wrote in the soul when he made it, under the in- 
fluence of his personal presence. 

The solution is logical and necessary from the 
premises. Hence, we find, in addition to what has already 
been named, sin, disorder, disease, penalty, redemption, 
incarnation, heaven and hell — all within, in man. There 
is no escaping to the exernal world after the assumptions 
have been accepted. There are many other conceptions, 
like the Infinite ; the Eternal and Eternal Energy ; the dif- 
fused spirit of God concentrated in Christ; suspended 
Christian development; the divine purity indistinguish- 
ably identified with the impure; power to know God and 
truth directly and immediately and many others, none of 
which are known in the Christian Scriptures nor in the 
Christian church, in the sense and application given them 
in the Evolution of Christianity. 

It seems strange that so much liberty should be taken 
with God; and at the same time, the Evolution of Christi- 
anity should not pause to ask whether he has any method 
by which to evolve his kingdom. Furthermore it seems 
to be a misnomer to call that Christianity which has been 
evolved out of conceptions unknown to Christian 
thought. And this statement of the attitude of the Evo- 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 15 

lution of Christianity towards the historic sources of 
Christian thought and Christian faith being correct, we 
are forced to the conclusion that the logical carrying out 
of its assumptions must overthrow the supremacy of 
revealed religion as we find it in our Bible; and begin an 
era of speculation based upon new grounds, having no 
sanction but human wisdom. 

The Evolution of Christianity admits that its hypothesis 
includes other assumptions that are antagonistic to 
each other. It says, "With the scientific believer, I be- 
lieve in the orderly and progressive development of all 
life; with the religious believer I believe in the reality of 
a life of God in the soul of man. It is not my object 
to reconcile these two beliefs, but assuming the truth of 
both to show that this divine life is itself subject to the 
law of all life; that Christianity is itself an evolution." 
Christianity then is the product of the evolution of "a life 
of God in the soul of man." Not only is the conception 
of "the orderly development of all life" at variance with 
the "conception of the evolution of a life of God;" but 
both conceptions are ambiguous and thus, to a still greater 
degree, involve the universal postulate of evolution in un- 
certainty. The orderly development of all life may in- 
clude the life or, at least, a life of God. The application 
of the theory requires a life or the life of God in nature, 
for he is a spirit and is in nature as the soul is in the 
body. The Evolution of Christianity was conscious of 
the incongruity of the conceptions here and reduced it 
to a "somewhat similar." It says, "we are coming to 
think of God as ruling, not only in physical nature, but 
in a somewhat similar manner in human nature," i. e.. 



16 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

The material universe and man are governed somewhat 
alike. Does this somewhat "reconcile the difference be- 
tween the way God is evolved in a star and in a man? 
If so, then Plato and Aristotle more than anticipated 
The Evolution of Christianity, for they supposed that the 
corporeal universe was animated by a world-soul ; and 
that the stars were gods ; and that true philosophers would 
go to them and share their life. 

The application of the evolutionary formula, "a contin- 
uous progressive change, according to certain laws and 
by means of resident forces," requires greater accuracy in 
defining* the subsidiary assumptions. Are we to lay 
aside the holy confidence we have cherished all our lives 
in Jehovah, and subject his life to the law of change sup- 
posed to take place in the life of the lowest animal ? How 
does the Evolution of Christianity know that all life is 
changeable? Has he had opportunity to observe all the 
particular lives included in his universe? What does he 
know about the life of God, of which he makes such 
familiar and irreverent use? What is life? It is spoken 
of as one would speak of the germ in a grain of corn. 
But every boy on the farm knows that is not true. A 
dead germ is as perfect in shape and matter as a living 
one. The life is not the form of the germ nor the mat- 
ter composing it, nor is the life developed into the stalk 
and ear — it is the living germ which is developed into the 
perfect plant. So that the evolutionary formula, when its 
assumptions are reduced to strict definitions, is only ap- 
plicable to corporeal forms having life, not to life itself. 
Again, does the Evolution of Christianity deal fairly 
with us when it leaves us to grapple with the question 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 17 

concerning the distinction it makes (if any) between the 
life of the animal and the life of man, the life of the 
body and the life of the soul, the life of the human soul 
and the life of God, and the life of the human body and 
the life of God, and between all these and the life of a 
plant. In the absence of a distinct avowal, I hesitate to 
say that the Evolution of Christianity believes that all 
life is the same life; but the theory logically requires it. 
Later we will see the heathen supposed life in every- 
thing. 

But there is still a definition required in the most im- 
portant field for the application of the evolutionary theory 
— in the evolution of the human soul. The Evolution of 
Christianity avoids the responsibility of definitions by 
telling us that evolution does not propose to tell us what 
life is, nor how it came to exist in man and other things. 
It assumed, without proof, that all life is subject to the 
law of evolution, especially the life of God in the soul. 
It believes that the soul will survive the body and continue 
to live right on. It has a capacity of life, then, which 
the body has not. Now, is this life evolved, or the spirit 
essence of the soul, or its power to know and feel and 
will? If the last named supposition is the correct one. 
then the evolutionary hypothesis cannot apply to the soul 
as it applies to all other living things, assuming that it is 
applicable for the argument's sake. The other two suppo- 
sitions are absurd in themselves; and, besides, there are 
no phenomena to guide an investigation. Life and the 
essence of the soul are beyond the reach of observation. 
We know the soul's existence from the phenomena of 
the intellect and the sensibilities and the will; and these 



18 THE E VOL UTION THE OR Y 

phenomena are given us in consciousness ; and there is no 
knowledge of anything which does not come through 
these channels in our possession. Dreams, visions, in- 
tuitions, aberrations and insanity are so many states of 
the intellect, depending upon or reproducing antecedent 
mental phenomena without the directing influence of rea- 
son and the will. The soul cannot be absolutely passive ; 
it responds in one way or another to every influence that 
enters consciousness. It is probably correct to say that 
the soul never sleeps. Now, in all this ceaseless activity, 
even in the hours of sleep, ecstasy and insanity, the phe- 
nomena of the soul always reveal their origin in the in- 
tellect, the sensibilities and the will. Abnormal condi- 
tions do not change this fact. So that whether normal 
or abnormal, the changes of which we can be witnesses 
take place within the limits of these three states of the 
soul. The soul, then, as a unit, may be said to act as 
intellect, as sensibilities and as will. These phenomena 
prove the existence of the soul as something endowed 
with its own life and attributes. Individuality and per- 
sonal identity can be predicated of the soul, and hence of a 
human being, on no other grounds. Therefore, when the 
Evolution of Christianity assumes the existence of the life 
of God and of God himself within, in the soul of hu- 
manity, what is meant? Is it the life or the spirit essence 
that is subject to the evolutionary formula? If "man and 
God are in very essence one," how can we think of the 
evolution of man without at the same time thinking of 
the evolution of God? But all the conceptions we so rev- 
erently cherish concerning our Heavenly Father, the holi- 
ness and majesty of his personality, the infinite value of 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 19 

his personal identity to our hearts — all these are sacri- 
ficed in the assumption of conditions in the soul of man, 
which bring it under the requirements of the evolutionary 
formula. Such a scheme is an outrage upon the most 
holy and sacred sensibilities of the human heart. The- 
orists very much resemble butchers; having divinity, in- 
finity, eternity and humanity to dispose of, they cut and 
carve, and try and fit, to suit the theory their finite minds 
have formulated like the gods they are, if their assump- 
tions are true. 

But it is assumed that "there is a life of God in the 
soul." The Evolution of Christianity should have ex- 
plained which one it supposes to be in the soul. The irrev- 
erent reader might ask, also, how many lives God has. I 
do not ask it. It borders too closely on blasphemous 
familiarity. The mere mention of the words of this as- 
sumption is sufficient to make clear our criticisms that 
the evolutionary formula and the subsidiary assumptions 
under it are vague, ambiguous and represent conceptions 
entirely foreign and antagonistic to those of the Christian 
Scriptures and the Christian church. Evolution from 
such assumptions cannot produce Christianity. 

One more criticism relates co the evolutionary concep- 
tion of the material universe. The Evolution of Chris- 
tianity says, "The doctrine of evolution, then, makes no 
attempt whatever to explain the nature or origin of life. 
It is concerned not with the origin, but with the phe- 
nomena of life. It sees the forces resident in the phe- 
nomena, but it throws no light on how they came there. 
It traces the tree from the seed, the animal from the 
embryo, the planetary system from its nebulous condition, 



20 THE E VOL Ul ION THE OR Y 

it investigates and ascertains the process of development ; 
but it does not explain what is the difference between the 
seed which is a living thing and a grain of sand which is 
dead ; or between the vitalized and the unvitalized tgg ; or 
what is in the nebulae, which produces out of chaos a beau- 
tiful world fitted for human habitation." There is in this 
assumption a clear case of avoiding the vital issue ; for the 
forces are resident in the phenomena, which can be but 
an evidence of force. The force that develops the germ 
in the seed is back of all the phenomena of growth; but 
the adventure into the realm of "dead" matter with the 
evolutionary hypothesis faces a new problem. Why was 
not a new subsidiary hypothesis proposed or, at least, an 
attempt made to define whether dead matter is endowed 
with the capacity for originating motion? This would 
not have required an explanation of "how" this capacity 
came there, a task which the Evolution of Christianity 
studiously avoids. But it will not be claimed that there 
can be "progressive change" without motion. The evo- 
lutionary theory falls to the ground the moment it admits 
there is no cause of motion. But what is that cause in 
the evolution of dead matter? The answer does not require 
an explanation of "the difference between a dead grain 
of sand and living seed." We would have been saved 
the trouble of this part of the criticism if some adequate 
cause of motion in dead matter — a "resident" cause — had 
been named. Spontaneity can originate motion, and 
nothing but a being endowed with spontaneity can cause 
motion towards an end. Man can originate motion with- 
in certain limits because he is endowed with spontaneity. 
God, therefore, "who made heaven and earth and all that 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 21 

in them is," is the only adequate cause of all motion. But 
why did not the Evolution of Christianity say so? Did 
it hesitate to say at this stage of the argument that God 
is resident in dead matter? It tells us later that God is 
in nature, ruling in nature as the spirit resides in the hu- 
man body. So Plato and Aristotle taught concerning 
the "world soul." Has the Evolution of Christianity 
no definition to give that will distinguish it from heathen 
conceptions four centuries before Christ? There ought 
to be evolution in conceptions of matter if such a process 
is going on in matter. The mental phenomena of evolu- 
tionists do not sustain their theory. 

But we pass from this to another phase of this assump- 
tion concerning the evolution of the planetary system. 
Now it is claimed that "the doctrine of evolution investi- 
gates and ascertains the process of development." How 
does it investigate and ascertain the process? If "it sees 
the forces resident in phenomena," what produces the 
phenomena ? Cause and effect are not identical, and phe- 
nomena are effects. Phenomena are needed, and badly 
needed, to reveal the existence of a force or forces by 
means of which the process of the evolution of "the plan- 
etary system from nebulous matter out of chaos 
into a beautiful world suitable for human habita- 
tion" was carried on. Who are the witnesses of these 
phenomena ? One of the most important terms in the as- 
sumption, also, is not accepted as the "final judgment" of 
scientists. The nebulous condition of the material uni- 
verse is only one of many assumptions that have been 
made to explain the process by which the worlds were 
made. Almost every philosopher from Thales (640 B. 



22 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

C), to the present time, has either proposed a new hy- 
pothesis or modified an old one. Why should the Evo- 
lution of Christianity place a higly improbable element 
in its subsidiary assumption? Is the uncertainty not 
great enough in the universal, unproven, assumption, 
without causing it to rest on other assumptions still 
further removed from the phenomena of the universe, as 
far as we are able to know it? When the Evolution of 
Christianity proposed at the outset to give us some "ex- 
act definitions" we had reason to expect something dif- 
ferent from "the nebulae" in its statements. And it is 
wholly gratuitous to inform us that evolution does not 
propose to "tell what was in the nebulae." Nobody 
would suspicion it of knowing. But why disavow the in- 
tention of telling if the answer is known? And if it is 
not known, why presume upon our unsophisticated cre- 
dulity; as if we would think it knew. 

One more criticism on the general view of the formula 
and its subsidiaries. Instead of occupying the field best 
known, where the vast majority of men live, and where 
the phenomena of living and dead things are abundant 
and free to all ; the conceptions which are put into them 
require us to forsake the phenomena with which we are 
familiar, cross the horizon of the known, and grope in 
the region of the unknown, with no guides but a few 
"experts" who have not yet made up their "final judg- 
ment as to whether their assumptions are true or not." 
It is unnecessary to enter a criticism on the morality of 
such a proceeding. The nebulae, if they ever existed, 
and their phenomena, during the chaotic period, are un- 
known to us. Yet, they are spoken of with the assurance 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 23 

of eye witnesses. My criticism on this general view, 
therefore, is this : The phenomena, with which man has 
been familiar since he became a witness of the visible 
events of earth and sky, show that for six thousand years 
there has been no such thing as "continuous progressive 
change" going on. The same sun, moon and stars are 
in their places, morning, noon and night. Light has 
crossed the unfathomed depths of space at the same 
marvelous velocity and told the same story to the eye and 
heart of man. "The heavens declare the glory of God 
and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day 
uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge. 
There is no language nor speech where their voice is 
not heard." This has been the song of the devout heart 
for three thousand years; but its sentiment, the founda- 
tion on which it rests, was uttered six thousand years 
ago in the words : "In the beginning God created the 
heaven and the earth." The phenomena of light and 
darkness, day and night, the lights in the firmament, the 
greater light ruling the day, the lesser light ruling the 
night ; all the phenomena of the dry land, the seas, of plant 
and animal life — all testify that the same physical forces 
which are also laws, have uninterruptedly held dominion 
throughout the material universe as far as we are able to 
know it. Men may wonder at the evidences of vast cata- 
clysms in the earth's surface; at the disappearance of 
great monsters from the sea and huge mastodons from 
the land, but none of these changes, whose records are 
sacredly kept by the everlasting rocks, give the least hint 
of the expansion of the borders of Eden or the reproduc- 
tion of its luxurious vegetation, its pleasant fruits and 



24 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

flowers. The material changes have gone the other way. 
The rocks hold in their bosoms the indestructible testi- 
mony that life has made no "progressive change" against 
the power of death. The most gigantic representatives 
of life were the first to yield to the sway of death and 
decay. The tombs of the Pharaohs present to onr eyes 
the ghastly evidence that death has always been "the 
king of terrors and terror of all kings" among men; 
but no trace of man has been found among the fossils of 
the rocks. This shows that he entered the drama of life 
after a habitation had been prepared for him, — after the 
earth's crust had received its present arrangement, — after 
provision had been made in animal and plant life to supply 
his physical wants, — after the sun had stored its energy 
in the glory of the primeval forests that now lie in com- 
pressed layers, waiting to supply, at the bidding of man, 
the power that lifts his burdens, that drives the wheels 
on land and sea, by which the products of his toil and 
genius are borne to the ends of the earth. But at the be- 
ginning man was made to have dominion over all the 
earth. There is no law in force now that was not in 
operation then. Eden and its life was an epitome of the 
world's history to the end of time. Even the deep waters 
of the sea preserve some of the phenomena that must 
have been witnessed when the waters that covered the 
earth were first gathered together into seas. There is 
no new life on land or sea ; on the other hand, some of the 
largest animals belonging to both, where we would expect 
the resident life force to be most effective, have become 
extinct; and the same is true of several smaller species. 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 25 

And innumerable millions of the lower orders of water 
animals are found as fossils. 

Now will "the experts" please step with us into the 
midst of these phenomena and point out the aisles of the 
material universe along which the procession has been 
moving from the nebulous condition, out of chaos, on 
down through the evolutionary ages till now, according 
to the formula : "continuous progressive change, accord- 
ing to certain laws and by means of resident forces." 
On what corner of the world will they plant their Jacob 
staff and say "this is the beginning; here matter began; 
here it is in its original condition; here is what it be- 
came next," and so on till we see it as it is now. We 
have no trouble with the phenomena of the world as it 
is. The whole trouble is with the world as it is not, — the 
hypothetical world. We have a right to demand of "the 
experts" the location of some of the "original corners," 
before we enter "tentatively" upon the work of survey- 
ing the universe as it must have been according to their 
theories. Life is the most interesting and the most desir- 
able thing - in the world. Let those, who know, tell us — 
not where life began, nor how it came to be in the world 
— but tell us how many centuries they know that life has 
been subject to the law of "continuous progressive change 
according to known physical laws and by means of known 
physical forces." I assume that "the experts" would 
think the request unfair to ask them to show a section 
of such development, for any period of time, according 
to unknown laws and by means of unknown forces. 
The Evolution of Christianity believes in "the experts" 
trusts them with the settlement of this whole problem. 



26 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

They are atheists, agnostics, infidels and a few who pro- 
fess to be Christian. The Evolution of Christianity 
boasts of the privilege of sharing such company. It says 
"One may with Haeckel believe in spontaneous genera- 
tion, or with Tyndal disbelieve in it, and in either case 
be an evolutionist.' , With the most fraternal sympathy 
it leans upon Huxley's words and when Le Conte boasts 
that "the law of evolution is far more certain than the 
law of gravitation," it bows in adoration, saying, "In view 
of such a saying from such a source, it is decorous for the 
non-expert in science to pass by without discussion, the 
scientific objection to the doctrine." But what shall we 
say when the Evolution of Christianity in almost the 
same breath, irreverently brushes aside the testimony of 
Genesis concerning the origin of human life, declares 
the book "quite anonymous," assigned by modern schol- 
arship "to an author many centuries subsequent to 
Moses;" "its material gathered from ancient myths, leg- 
ends and traditions ;" "its author lays no claim to having 
received the matters which he records as a revelation," 
and appealing to the reader, innocently asks : "Did God 
reveal the facts to the historian?" And then tears away 
the testimony of the oldest record of the origin of matter 
and of life in the possession of the race by informing him 
that "the Chaldean tablets are at least as old as the Book 
of Genesis and contain such material ; that the same 
are found in ancient legends of other nations; and, be- 
sides, scholars have been able to separate the book into its 
parts, hypothetically, into the narratives of which it was 
composed ; that the story of Eden is found nowhere else 
than in Hebrew literature, is readily characterized as 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 27 

poetic and imaginative, not as scientific and historical." 
Were it not so manifest that the Evolution of Christian- 
ity has an interest in depriving the Book of Genesis of its 
historical character to make room for its evolutionary 
"animal-man," it would be worth while to make formal 
answer to these stale and indefensible allegations against 
its authenticity and genuineness. We will, however, let 
the Evolution of Christianity answer them. Quoting 
Francis Lenormant (Beginnings of History) it appropri- 
ates his words by saying: "The Christian evolutionist 
with Lenormant does not suppose that the facts narrated 
in the book of Genesis were supernaturally revealed to the 
historian." But, Lenormant says, "The essential feat- 
ures of the form of the tradition (Chaldean) have been 
preserved, and yet between the Bible and the sacred books 
of Chaldea, there is all the distance of one of the most 
tremendous revolutions, which have ever been effected 
in human beliefs. Herein consists the miracle and it is 
none the less amazing for being transposed. Others may 
seek to explain this by the simple, natural progress of the 
conscience of humanity; for myself, I do not hesitate to 
find in it the effect of a supernatural intervention of Di- 
vine Providence, and I bow before the God who inspired 
the Law and the Prophets." It seems to me that an in- 
spired tradition or a book or books written as "the effect 
of a supernatural intervention of Divine Providence" 
ought to be very reliable history. But Dr. Abbott, him- 
self, says, "The lessons which the divinely inspired pro- 
phet (hypothetical author of Genesis) found in life anc$ 
wrote into the already current history of a prehistoric 
age are alike inspired, whether the scientific and historical 



28 2 HE E VOL UTIO N THEOR V 

materials were revelations or traditions." Now the au- 
thors of these declarations do not expect us to believe 
that God would inspire a prophet or prophets, even in a 
prehistoric age, to make a record of inspired lies for pres- 
ervation. If, then, the book of Genesis is a record of 
truth, the account given of the origin of matter, of the 
body of man and the source of his life, must stand. The 
attempt of the Evolution of Christianity to carry the 
work of evolving matter and life and the planetary sys- 
tem, beyond the inspired record of their origin, is estop- 
ped by its own admissions. But the theory of evolution 
has too much need of inspiration, as a subsidiary hypoth- 
esis, later on, to deny it to the author or authors of the 
first chapters of Genesis. 

The Evolution of Christianity seems more confident 
of the correctness of its theory than evolutionists them- 
selves. Professor J. Arthur Thomson, lecturer on zool- 
ogy in the School of Medicine, Edinburgh, himself an 
evolutionist, says : "Unless we can give some theory 
of the origin of variations, we have no material for fur- 
ther construction. Unfortunately we are very ignorant 
about the whole matter. But, in the first place, it is quite 
certain that the environment in the widest sense must 

be the primary cause of changes in animals 

But in regard to the direct conditions of organic change, 
naturalists are or ought to be very uncertain." In a foot 
note, he says, "It seems to me desirable to avoid talking 
about the 'principles of evolution,' e. g. } as variability, 
heredity, and natural selection, or as variability, heredity, 
isolation. Not only are words like 'principle' used in the 
loosest possible way, but they suggest a conclusiveness, 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 29 

which certainly does not exist, and they are apt to become 
intellectual fetishes." (Outline Zoology, p. 83.) 

Prof. Thomson in addition to his own mild statement 
of the influence of environment in producing variation 
in animal bodies, states also the views of the distinguished 
Prof. Weisman, as follows: "Weisman denies the trans- 
missibility of any characters, except those inherent or 
congenital in the fertilized egg-cell, and therefore denies 
that the influence of function and environment are, or 
have been, of any importance in the evolution of many- 
celled animals." (P. 66). Since environment is so 
much relied upon by some as a cause of variations in an- 
imal bodies and hence also an important force in evolu- 
tion, the opinions of these gentlemen are valuable as 
showing the feebleness of the hold of the assumption on 
the scientific mind. And it scarcely needs the remark 
that environment cannot promote the theory of the Evo- 
lution of Christianity for environment is external, while 
our formula requires that change shall occur "by means 
of resident forces." 

Again he says : "It is hardly necessary to say that 
the young mammal is never like a worm, or a fish, or a 
reptile. It is at most like the young stages of these." 
This is said in reply to Haeckel's ''fundamental biogenetic 
law — ontogeny, or the development of the individual, is 
a shortened recapitulation of phylogeny, or the evolution 
of the race." And he further says, "The individual's re- 
capitulation of racial history is a general, but not a precise 

statement of the facts Finally, we do not 

clearly understand how the recapitulation is sustained. 
Has the embryo a feeling for history, or some unconscious 



30 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

memory of the past? Recapitulation is due to no dead 
hand of the past, but to physiological conditions which 
we are unable to discover or express. (P. 63. ) 

It will be noted by the reader that these two points are 
fundamental and that they are conditions without which 
the assumption of evolution is deprived of both a starting 
point and continuous phenomena. Prof. Thomson says : 
"We have no material for further construction, if we can- 
not give some theory of variations. The Evolution of 
Christianity requires 'continuous progressive change,' 
and subjects all life even 'the life of God in the soul of 
humanity' to this assumption." But Prof. Thomson says: 
"Unfortunately we are very ignorant about the whole 

matter in regard to the direct conditions 

of organic change, naturalists are or ought to be very un- 
certain." But Dr. Lyman Abbott is so certain that he 
rushes with his unproven theory into an arena "where 
angels fear to tread." To my mind there is nothing 
more presumptuous than this subjection of the life of 
God to continuous progressive change, and that, too, in 
the interest of a theory that is waiting for "the final judg- 
ment of the scientific experts." Prof. Thomson says: 
"We do not clearly understand how the recapitulation is 
sustained ; that it is hardly necessary to say that the young 
mammal is never like a worm, a fish or a reptile. It is at 
most like the young stages of these. Recapitulation is 
due to physiological conditions which we are unable to dis- 
cover or express/' Dr. Lyman Abbott says : "The doc- 
trine of evolution traces the tree from the seed, the animal 
from the embryo, the planetary system from its nebulous 
condition; it investigates, and ascertains the process of 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 31 

development!' Why is the naturalist, an expert in evo- 
lution, more modest in his claims than the theologian, the 
Doctor of Divinity, who lays no claim to being an ex- 
pert? Prof. Thomson says: "As many of the most 
fundamental structural and functional problems in con- 
nection with placentation are still being investigated, it is 
impossible to discuss even the leading questions with def- 
initeness and certainty." Dr. Abbott, however, in the 
quotation just given claims that the doctrine of evolution 
traces the animal from the embryo, investigates and ascer** 
tains the process of development. Prof. Thomson advises 
against the use of such phrases as "principles of evolu- 
tion," because they suggest a conclusiveness, which does 
not exist. But Dr. Lyman Abbott, as a non-expert, makes 
an intellectual prostration when Le Conte affirms that 
"the law of evolution is far more certain than the law of 
gravitation." Is Dr. Abbott's confidence in the "scien- 
tific experts" greater than in his hypothetically divinely 
inspired prophets who wrote the first three chapters of 
Genesis? Would it not have become his calling, as a 
shepherd in Israel, better to have observed the moderation 
and caution of Prof. Thomson? The declaration of 
Prof. Thomson makes it clear that the Evolution of 
Christianity is based upon undefined and unsettled as- 
sumptions. 

This evolutionary, formula has no corresponding equiv- 
alent conceptions in science and cannot be translated di- 
rectly without paraphrase or modification into the famil- 
iar language, which the phenomena of scientific investii 
gation have created. Take the whole group of electrical 
phenomena, it cannot be conceived under what conditions 



32 THE EVOL UTION THEOR Y 

they would suggest "continuous, progressive change." 
The phenomena are instantaneous or not at all. Take all 
the phenomena of attraction. The conception of universal 
attraction, as stated by Ganot, is that "it is a force, in 
virtue of which the material particles of all bodies tend 
incessantly to approach each other; it is a mutual action, 
however, which all bodies, at rest or in motion, exert upon 
one another, no matter how great or how small the space 
between them may be, or whether this space be occupied or 
unoccupied by other matter." And Newton's law he ex- 
presses thus : "The attraction between two material par- 
ticles is directly proportional to the product of their masses 
and inversely proportional to the square of their distances 
asunder." No reason can be given for changing this law, 
but there are many reasons why it should not be changed. 
It would be difficult to imagine what the effect would be 
on our planetary system. It might be such a change as 
would cause all our planetary worlds to rush together to 
one common center, or relax the centripetal force and let 
them fly off into space lawless; or find another center or 
revolve in larger orbits around the old one. The un- 
changeable operation of this law seems necessary, there- 
fore, for the conservation of the universe of matter. 
Some one has spoken of the "crash of worlds and the uni- 
versal wreck of matter," but what prevents it but the un- 
changeable constancy of the operation of the law of 
gravity ? 

The phenomena of attraction are also witnessed between 
the smallest particles of matter at infinitely small dis- 
tances. Adhesion, cohesion, capillarity, chemism and mag- 
netism play a most important part in the conservation of 



• CRITICISM OF FORMULA 33 

all material bodies ; these must soon fall down into their 
simple elements without them. The conception of "con- 
tinuous progressive change" cannot be translated into the 
phenomena of these attractions. 

The energy of the sun's rays gives the nations their 
bread by means of the constancy of their light and heat. 
A change of but a few degrees either way in the heat or 
cold on the earth's surface would destroy both animals and 
plants. The protoplasm of the vegetable cell is coagu- 
lated at about 140 degrees F. And but few men have not 
had experience with blisters on the naked skin under the 
heat of our usual summer sun. Under its rays evapora- 
tion is uniform, and heat puts the atmosphere in 
motion, and the winds bear the clouds over the thirsty 
land. This has been going on from the beginning. The 
writer of the book of Genesis informs us concerning "the 
mist that went up from the earth and watered the w T hole 
face of the ground." Thus the energy of the sun has 
performed the mighty work of conserving both plant and 
animal life as we see it today, and by methods that have 
been unchangeable, on the whole, and familiar to all the 
world, since the witness who wrote the first three chapters 
of Genesis recorded the testimony of his generation. The 
story in w r hich the grapes of Eschol are mentioned indi- 
cates that thirty-six centuries of cultivation have made 
but little improvement in the quality of the fruit; and 
Abigail's present of dried figs and grapes to David shows 
that there has been no change in the high esteem in which 
these noble. fruits are held. The ass on which Balaam 
rode would be recognized as the worthy mother of all 
that family of sure-footed little beasts that have borne 



34 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

their masters and their burdens over the mountains of the 
world. 

The chemical union of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and 
nitrogen under the direction and energy of the life force 
has steadily gone on building up the great bulk of the 
bodies of all plants and animals, without a mistake. Cab- 
bage heads have never been found growing on the shoul- 
ders of men in the progress of life upward, notwithstand- 
ing the close material relationship. Such progress does 
not exist along any of the lines of natural phenomena with 
which we are familiar. The evolutionary process is con- 
fined, by its advocates, to the dark. It occurs in the evo- 
lution of matter, in the "nebulae," of whose existence there 
are no witnesses ; or it occurs in the racial recapitulations 
of the cell or embryo. But the phenomena of the growth 
of both the plant and the animal bodies, as above stated, 
show that the process of adding these simple elements 
must begin in the primary cell while it can receive the 
nourishment provided by its parent. There can be no 
break in this connection without destroying both plant 
and animal, should the separation occur before the young 
plant or the young animal has made sufficient growth to 
begin the separate appropriation of its food which it finds 
provided for it in a condition suited to its distinct indi- 
vidual existence. Now from the very first movement of 
the cell towards the achievement of its ultimate purpose, 
the growth takes place by additions, the materials for 
which are found in its food. But additions are not evo- 
lution. They are not from within ; they are not "continu- 
ous;" they are simply successive coming from without and 
for a comparatively brief period; then the growth ends. 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 35 

and all the physical energies of the individual are turned 
upon the conservation of its body. Neither are these 
additions "progressive." They are for the accomplish- 
ment of the single purpose for which the individual cell 
exists, the perfection of its body ; there can be no progress 
from a lower to a higher without a change of plan, which 
assumes an intervention of omnipotence at every step. 
Also the conception of change is excluded, because the life 
of the body depends upon the same food being given it, 
and a change in its plan kills it. The removal of a limb 
sometimes destroys the adult. It is far more rational 
and freer from theoretical interest to assume a new crea- 
tion at each change. This may read very commonplace 
to the scientist who loves the mysterious and prefers to 
have free scope for his theoretically intoxicated imagina- 
tion ; but the laity are well pleased to find that their own 
everyday observations have an irrefutable weight in mat- 
ters of this kind. 

Therefore, the conceptions assumed by the Evolution 
of Christianity are not found to correspond with the con- 
ceptions to which the familiar phenomena of the course 
of nature give rise. We find this corroborated by the tes- 
timony of the race from the beginning. And thus the 
theory is driven back into chaos for a theater of action, 
and no witnesses have reported either facts or phenom- 
ena — it is the realm of scientific fiction. The material 
universe, as far as we know it, issued from chaos pos-> 
sessed of the same sum total of energy it has today, and, 
therefore, presented the same phenomena at the beginning. 
Ganot defines energy "as the capacity for producing phy- 
sical change;" and concerning its conservation he says: 



36 THE E VOL UTION THE OR Y 

"Another result of great importance, which has been ar-» 
rived at by experiment, is that the total amount of energy 
possessed by any system of bodies is unaltered by any 
transformations, arising from the action of one part of 
the system upon another, and can only be increased or 
diminished by effects produced upon the system 'by ex- 
ternal agents/ As a system of bodies, therefore, the 
planetary system has not been subject to 'continuous, pro- 
gressive change,' for this would require a continual in- 
crease of energy; but this can only take place by means 
of 'external agents,' which is contrary to the evolutionary 
formula, which requires continuous, progressive change 
(from lower to higher) by means of resident forces" 

But the results of scientific investigation look forward 
as well as backward. From what exists we can reason 
with certainty back to what has been and forward to what 
must be. As already seen, the existence of the world, as 
we know it today, is conceivable in the past, only as the 
total amount of energy, of which it is now possessed, 
has uniformly operated to conserve it in its present con- 
dition. A change in this capacity for producing phy- 
sical effects must give us a different system from that 
we now know. 

So much is claimed by some evolutionists on the score 
of all scientists accepting the theory; and, still at the 
same time, they admit that "the experts" have not made 
up their "final judgment;" so much confindence, I say, is 
shown, that it will be wholesome reading to see what 
Professor Ganot has said concerning the future prospects 
of the material universe. His learned work on Physics 
passed through nine large editions in about as many years 



CRITICISM OF FORMULA 37 

in France, and has been translated into German, Spanish 
and English. The latter is before me and is numbered 
"The Fourteenth Edition." He says : "There is, then, 
in the present state of the known world, a tendency to- 
wards the conversion of all physical energy into the sole 
form of heat. Heat, moreover, tends to diffuse itself 
uniformly by conduction and radiation, until all matter 
shall have acquired the same temperature. There is, 
consequently, so far as we understand the present condi- 
tion of the universe, a tendency towards a state, in which 
all physical energy will be in the state of heat, and that 
heat so diffused that all matter will be at the same 
temperature; so that there will be an end of all phy- 
sical phenomena. Vast as this speculation seems, it ap- 
pears to be soundly based on experimental data and to 
truly represent the present condition of the universe as far 
as we know it." Other physicists and astronomers take 
a similar view — based upon the theory that the sun's en- 
ergy will finally be exhausted when all physical motion, 
in the planetary system, at least, must cease. 

Now looking backward and looking forward, we see 
no ground on which to build the theory of "continuous, 
progressive change." On the other hand, the total 
amount of energy in the material universe, being con- 
stant, excludes the theory from any share in working 
the changes whose phenomena we know. And if scien- 
tists are correct concerning the present tendency of the 
material universe towards a condition in which all phe- 
nomena or motion shall cease, then the formula of "con- 
tinuous progressive change, according to certain laws 
and by means of resident forces" is a mendacious procla- 



38 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

mation to the unscientific reading world, and a misrep- 
resentation of the whole course of nature. 

But a theory whose conceptions are without scientific 
foundation must lead still farther astray in its appli- 
cation. 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 39 



CHAPTER II. 



CRITICISM OF THE APPLICATION OF THE 
EVOLUTIONARY FORMULA. 

Without "exact definitions," any proposition is liable to 
mislead; and where its scope is universal and its concep- 
tions and assumptions are unknown in the field which it 
is sought to subject to them; there, there must occur con- 
stant 'misfits and intellectual and spiritual chasms, which 
cannot be smoothed over nor crossed without doing viol- 
ence to the uprightness and integrity of the enlightened 
judgment. This chapter will call attention to numerous 
instances in support of this proposition. 

A legititmate criticism of the Evolution of Christianity, 
at the outset, should insist on the evolution being Chris- 
tian. Notwithstanding this reasonable expectation we 
are soon informed that in the process of evolution the 
church took up into its life much that was pagan and 
presented the spectacle of "paganized Christianity and 
Christianized paganism." And in fifteen centuries we 
are presented with the novel conception of an "arrested 
Christian development." This illustrates in a general 
way the incongruity of the evolutionary conception with 
the simplicity, integrity and spiritual purity of the Chris- 



40 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

tian religion. "The Christian evolutionist expects Chris- 
tianity to be a Centaur — half horse, half man." It is a 
mixed life — not a life "having no fellowship with the 
unfruitful works of darkness" — not the "putting away, 
as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, 
which waxeth corrupt after the lusts of deceit ; and that ye 
be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new 
man, which is after God created in righteousness and ho- 
liness of truth." Christian life is a new creation, not an 
evolution. As Chateaubriand says : "It is impossible to 
get a pure result from an impure fountain." The life of 
Christ is the only divine exhibition of what human life 
should seek to be; and the attempt to subject it, in com- 
mon with all other life, to the formula of "continuous 
progressive change" dethrones the personal Chris*- from 
the human heart ; and nothing can be called Christian that 
does not proceed from Him. It is an inexcusable break 
in the continuity of congruous conceptions to talk about 
paganism becoming Christianized and Christianity be- 
coming paganized, and, out of the mixture, bringing forth 
a "Christian development." History, not the enforce- 
ment of the theory, compelled the admission of "arrested 
Christian development." The debt that modern civiliza- 
tion owes to Gustavus Adolphus and his brave Swedes 
can never be paid. Catholicism, animated by the spirit 
and methods of pagan Rome as seen in all the popes from 
Constantine till now — as witnessed by the horrors of the 
"holy inquisition" in the Netherlands, in Spain and on St. 
Bartholomew's day, in France, would be one of the great- 
est world forces today, had not the sword of Adolphus 
and a few others like him overthrown the armies of the 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPIICA TION 41 

"Holy Roman Empire/' and protected the reproclamation 
of the Christianity of the New Testament. That is ar- 
rested paganism. 

This criticism leads to another ; the attempt to find sup- 
port for the evolutionary formula in the evolution of 
Christianity is involved in the necessity of disregarding 
the constant relations between cause and effect. Ganot 
says that, "A physical /<m f is the constant relation which 

exists between phenomenon and its cause In 

order to explain the cause of whole classes of phenomena, 
suppositions, or hypotheses) are made use of. The utility 
and probability of a hypothesis or theory are the greater 
the simpler it is, and the more varied and numerous are 
the phenomena which are explained by it; that is to say, 
are brought into regular causal connection among them- 
selves and with other natural phenomena." The intention 
of the distinguished author of these words was to state 
primarily a law of matter, but there can be no objection 
to its general application. The conduct of men every- 
where recognizes, without question, the certainty of the 
law, that "the relation which exists between any phenome- 
non and its cause is constant;" and that the phenomena 
which are explained by a hypothesis are brought into 
regular causal connection among themselves and with 
other natural phenomena. Xow the Evolution of Chris- 
tianity utterly fails to carry out its scheme according to 
this law of cause and effect. Paganism is an effect, Juda- 
ism is an effect, Christianity is an effect. Is the cause of 
all these the same? Is it possible to place Paganism and 
Christianity in any causal relation to each other or either 
of these to Judaism? The phenomena presented by each 



42 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

differs widely from all the rest. There must have been 
different causes for phenomena that differed so widely. 
A superficial knowledge of the history of the first three 
and one-half centuries of our era will convince the reader 
that both Judaism and heathenism regarded each other 
as mortal foes ; and, at the same time, both sought to de- 
stroy the church. The Evolution of Christianity as a 
subsidiary, working hypothesis supposes, with "an Eng- 
lish divine" "the" or "a life of God in the soul of man — - 
in humanity." Does this hypothesis bring the phenom- 
ena of heathenism, Judaism and Christianity into regular 
causal relation among themselves? Is "the influence of 
God's own personal presence and power unveiling in 
human consciousness that which God wrote in the soul 
when he made it," — is this the cause of the phenomena of 
the fierce hostility between the Jew and Gentile, and by 
both of these against the Christian ? Does this bring into 
causal relation the humanity of the last and the inhuman- 
ity of the other two ? This is not the place to present the 
historical and scriptural answer to this question. A crit- 
icism in such a case as this cannot be at the same time an 
elaboration,; — that will occupy later chapters. 

But talking of the evolution of men in general, of men 
in masses, in nations, in combinations of nations and 
states, is much the same as talking about what one sees 
in a fog-bank. It is when we know the individuals that 
we know the aggregation in which they live; e. g., com- 
pare Paul and Nero, John and Caligula, Polycarp and 
Julian the apostate. How will the Evolution of Chris- 
tianity bring the phenomena of these individual lives into 
regular causal relation among themselves. 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 43 

If the attempt is made with the above quoted subsidiary 
assumptions, it may be supposed to run something like 
this : Paul and Nero are two individual human beings ; 
and humanity is made up of individual human beings; 
therefore, whatever belongs to humanity belongs to Paul 
and Nero. The Evolution of Christianity affirms : "This 
life of God in humanity is one of continuous progressive 
change, according to certain divine laws, and by means 
of forces, or a force resident in humanity." And would 
no doubt bring the phenomena of the lives of Paul and 
Nero under the hypothesis in this style : The life of God 
in Paul and Nero is one of continuous progressive change, 
according to divine law as exemplified in the life of Christ, 
and by means of the influence of God's own personal 
presence and power resident in them. Or if this is not 
satisfactory, the Evolution of Christianity affirms that 
man and God are in every essence one. Placing this in 
the formula it reads : Paul and Nero and God are in very 
essence one, and subject to continuous progressive change 
in the evolution of life, according to divine law, as exem- 
plified in the life of Christ; and by means of God's own 
personal presence and power resident in them. But to 
carry this further may seem unnecessary, still it will pre- 
sent the application of this theory, by which it is proposed 
to exhibit the phenomena of the evolution of Christianity ; 
and, of course, the regular causal connection of these phe- 
nomena among themselves, from another interesting 
standpoint, to take one more example. The Evolution of 
Christianity affirms that, "Revelation is the unveiling in 
human consciousness of that which God wrote in the hu- 
man soul when he made it." No attempt is made to place 



44 THE E VOL UTION THE OR Y 

the assumption in the formula. We are left to do the best 
we can. How many would suppose that so great an ab- 
surdity could get into a scheme, which is advertised to 
produce Christianity and make it appear more rational 
and scientific. But here it is : Revelation is the unveil- 
ing, in the consciousness of Paul, and Nero, of that which 
God wrote in their souls when he made them, by contin-i 
uous progressive changes, according to divine law as ex- 
emplified in the life of Christ, and by means of the influ* 
ence of God's own personal presence and power resident 
in them. The same absurdities will appear in all the cases 
named, and, in all others that can be named, because the 
hypothesis is false and does not recognize the true cause 
of the phenomena of Christianity, and, hence, cannot bring 
them into regular causal connection among themselves 
and with other human phenomena. 

Dr. Abbott discredits the apostle Paul somewhat when 
he says, "He was not primarily a philosopher, loving the 
truth for its own sake and constructing it in carefully ar- 
ticulated systems. He was not by nature a logician. His 
logic is often defective and is always the logic of an ad- 
vocate. He does not hesitate to use the argumentum ad 
homincm (which means to play the demagogue)." But 
admitting all these defects (which of course I do not), 
no one can fairly doubt that Paul was a better witness of 
the phenomena of his own consciousness, and, more relia- 
ble as to their cause, than any one living today could be- 
Tt is interesting to read, as it were, from the depths of his 
great heart: "I have been crucified with Christ; yet T 
live; and yet no longer I, but Christ, liveth in me; and 
that life which I now live in the flesh, I live in faith, the 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICATION 45 

faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me and gave 
himself for me." Here the cause of the phenomena of 
Paul's life is clearly stated. It is, "I live in faith, the 
faith which is in the Son of God." But to arrive at that 
life he had been "crucified with Christ." This is not 
evolution. The "half-horse" was killed, not evolved. 
Then faith laid hold of a new Source of life; a new life 
like a never failing fountain, broke forth in the soul. 
Jesus said : "He that believeth on the Son hath eternal 
life. He that believeth not the Son shall not see life but 
the wrath of God abideth on him." 

It is certain, therefore, that the conception of life as- 
sumed in the Evolution of Christianity is not the apos- 
tolic conception and is, therefore, not Christian. It is 
logically impossible to bring the phenomena of Chris- 
tianity into causal connection among themselves by means 
of the evolutionary formula and its subsidiary assump-i 
tions. 

But, before leaving this question concerning the utility 
of this formula in its application to the development of 
Christianity, there are some interesting reflections remain- 
ing concerning the evolution of life in animal bodies. It 
will be recalled that the Evolution of Christianity says, 
"I assume that all life, including the religious life, pro- 
ceeds by a regular and orderly sequence from simpler and 
lower forms to more complex and higher forms." "I con- 
clude, then, that the doctrine that man is developed from 
a lower animal order is not inconsistent with the teaching 
of the Bible, if the Bible be interpreted as itself the his- 
tory of the development of religious thought and life, the 
life of God in the soul of man." We are arrested in our 



46 THE E VOL UTION THEOR V 

progress, however, by that "if." The Bible must be 
interpreted with an "if," in order that the Doctor's con- 
clusion, after wading through the obstacles in the appli- 
cation of his assumption, may be true. The reverent soul 
has never put its theory first and the Bible second ; on the 
other hand, the Bible is permitted to explain itself; and. 
if the explanation is not found at once, he trustingly waits 
till he shall know more of what God has revealed in his 
word. Isaiah said: "To the law and to the testimony; 
if they speak not according to this word, it is because there 
is no light in them." The Psalmist said : "Unless thy 
law had been my delights, I should then have perished 
in mine affliction. I will never forget thy precepts; for 
with them thou hast quickened me. I am thine, save me; 
for I have sought thy precept." The relation of God's 
word to the life of the soul is a conception of frequent oc- 
currence in the Bible. The apostles taught the churches 
they had founded that they were begotten by the word of 
God and by the gospel; and, that "the word of God is 
living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, 
and piercing to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both 
joints and marrow, and quick to discern the thoughts an<J 
intents of the heart." All the states of the soul have been 
anticipated by the God who gave the Bible, its most com- 
plex conditions have been analyzed in their minutest de- 
tails; and the word of God brings life into the soul that 
loves it. Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth ; 
the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken 
unto you are spirit and are life." But according to the 
Evolution of Christianity the soul is already preoccupied 
by the life of God, by God's own personal presence and 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA T10N 47 

power, revealing in consciousness what God wrote in the 
soul when he made it. The Doctor was honest when he 
wrote "if," but evidently intended to leave the reader to 
reconcile the prophet Isaiah, the Psalmist, Paul and Christ 
with Lyman Abbott, D. D., and Evolutionists. The Evo- 
lution of Christianity is not concerned about the fact that 
the Bible has a method and a means of bringing Christian 
life into the soul. 

But it is greatly concerned about evolving the "animal- 
man" from the lower orders of animals, in order to find a 
place in which to begin the evolution of the life of God in 
the soul of humanity. The assumption is that all life 
is subject to the evolutionary hypothesis, "from the germ- 
inant mollusk through every form of animate creation 
up to the vertebrate mammal, including man." This be- 
ing admitted, the lowest order is inherently endowed with 
the intention of moving on up to the next higher order, 
and then on, to the next, and so on till at the end of 
countless ages the Protozoa, having neither bones nor 
parts, being simple, single cells, endowed with life, be- 
come the "animal-man," with a back-bone and the won- 
derful mechanism of the most complicated parts, showing 
the most intelligent distribution of functions. Now our 
assumption is that all life is subject to the "continuous 
progressive change." Then all the Protczoa were sub- 
ject to this law, and all moved on in the procession up- 
ward. It is not necessary to insist that all moved up- 
ward at the same time or at the same rate of progress. 
It is sufficient to recognize the simple fact that the evo- 
lutionist requires that all life, hence all Protozoa, shall 
be subject to this theory. The formula filled out then 



48 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

must run something like this : All Protozoa were inher- 
ently subject to the intention of continuous, progressive 
changes from Protozoa to the next higher order; and, 
then, to the next, and so on, up to the animal-man; "ac- 
cording to laws, which either now are or may yet be un- 
derstood, or are, at all events, a proper subject of hopeful 
investigation;" and "by means of resident forces." This 
presents a problem infinitely more difficult of solution. 
than anything contained in the only rational account of, 
the origin of matter and animal life given in Genesis. 
The Protozoon is charged with the task of evolving the 
evolutionary "animal-man" by means of resident forces; 
which is equivalent to placing God with all his attributes 
in a single, simple, boneless, undifferentiated, brainless, 
bloodless cell, an animated speck of the softest, almost 
indescribable matter, supposed to be endowed with sex- 
ual functions. Understand, these forces, by means of 
which this stupendous purpose is to be wrought out, 
are "resident;" i. e., they are not external, but with- 
in" the Protozoon. This is what the Evolution of Chris 
tianity teaches us all evolutionists believe. For the pres- 
ent, let us admit it. Then it must follow as a necessary 
effect of the operation of our theory that all Protozoa 
would at some time cease to produce their own kind and 
would produce the next higher order and then the next 
until all the Protozoa would be in the procession towards 
the " animal-man" with no external force to help them 
over the hard places. Now where the last Protozoon took 
up his march — when does not concern us; for we have 
eternity to dispose of and God in a speck of jelly — when 
it left its primitive condition, I say, and looked back 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 49 

there were no more Protozoa. You ask why? The an- 
swer is, because the evolutionists made all life even the 
life of God subject to theory of "continuous, progressive 
change" from the lower order to the higher and we began 
with the lowest. Of course, there cannot be another 
order coming up to take the place of these which have 
moved on. 

I believe with all my heart, that God is all-wise and 
almighty, and it gives me rest to believe it; but I cannot 
believe that God in order to secure the evolutionary ''ani- 
mal-man" would pursue a course that is irrational and 
that would in the end defeat his own purpose. For if the 
process is continuous and universal as claimed, then the 
last and highest order, man himself, must disappear in 
some animal form still higher. But the fact that Proto- 
zoa still exist and continue to reproduce Protozoa in in- 
finite numbers is positive evidence that all life is not sub- 
ject to the theory of "continuous progressive change." 
The evidence of our eyes and the corroborative testimony 
of the race is worth shiploads of theories to the contrary. 

The testimony of the race leaves no room for doubt 
that the phenomena of life in the corporeal development 
of plants, animals and men have always been the same. If, 
now, causes ever existed which transformed apes ancj 
monkeys into men, who will tell the world when and why 
those causes ceased to operate? Scientists may juggle 
with cells and embryos and claim to know mysterious 
things, but the visible phenomena of final results demon- 
strate the original intention of each and every cell to pro- 
duce after its kind. Has it not occurred to the evolution- 



50 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

ist that, if his theory were at any time universally opera- 
tive, then, long ago, all the apes and monkeys would have 
become men? There would not be one left to bear wit- 
ness to the evolutionary ancestry of men. Or does the 
evolutionist hold the good old Calvinistic doctrine con- 
cerning apes and monkeys as well as men ; that some were, 
from all eternity, foreordained to become men ; while oth- 
ers, regardless of merit on account of good deeds done, 
exalted faith and lofty aspirations were condemned and 
foreordained to remain monkeys and apes ? But who will 
tell us why evolution quit making men out of apes and 
monkeys, if the causes ever existed, that produced such 
phenomena ? It is clear that a miracle is needed here equal 
to that recorded in Genesis to explain the suspension of a 
universal physiological law that had been in operation for 
countless ages. 

The Evolution of Christianity makes a somewhat in- 
genious provision, as the assumption it is boldly pushing 
through all difficulties, no doubt seemed to demand, — an 
ingenious provision for "the evolution of the soul," by 
first evolving an "animal-man" One easily calls to mind 
the "male-man" of Plato and Aristotle ; but we are not at 
liberty to infer that the author intended any reference to 
these old philosophers; for in their conception they re- 
versed the theory of the evolutionists and supposed that 
it was necessary for the "uppermost god" to make some 
gods for the special purpose of making all living ani- 
mals ; and they began by making this male-man who con- 
tained in himself all the possibilities of animal life. The 
first animal to be evolved from him was the "female-man." 
The reason given for this arrangement was that the "up- 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 5 1 

permost god" could not make the animals without making 
them immortal. Our author is much interested in his 
"animal-man" and affirms: "Whether God has put a 
divine spirit into the animal-man is a question of funda- 
mental religious significance; but how he prepared this 
animal habitation for the indwelling of the divine spirit 
whether by an instantaneous, creative act, or by a gra- 
dual evolutionary process, is a question, with no religious 
significance whatever. It is to be determined wholly by 
scientific considerations. He, who is not a scientific ex- 
pert, must be content to await the final judgment of those 
who are experts on this subject; and meanwhile accept 
tentatively their conclusions/' (Italics mine.) Are w^ 
permitted to juggle "tentatively" with the conclusions of 
the scientific experts on questions that contradict the 
Word of God? It is the trustworthiness of our Holy 
Scriptures made to depend upon the final judgment of 
scientists, about which we are concerned. The examples 
of this kind are numerous, but this is sufficient. The Evo- 
lution of Christianity thus invites to doubt if not to dis- 
belief, while we wait for the final. judgment of the scien- 
tist. This application of an unproven assumption, as this 
language and many other declarations clearly imply the 
evolutionary hypothesis to be, with the faith of all God's 
children for six thousand years against it, is more than 
an assumption — it is a reckless disregard of the conse- 
quences, — an invitation to trust the evolutionist rather 
than the inspired men who spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Spirit; it is a bold advertisement of some- 
thing still unknown, as a substitute for what has been 
confidently believed by the best and wisest of men, whether 



52 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

living or dead. The most arrogant thing of all is, "he 
who is not a scientific expert," is bluntly told that he 
"must be content to await the final judgment of those 
who are experts on this subject, and meanwhile accept 
tentatively their conclusion." The result of such a pro-? 
position can be nothing less than that everybody must 
suspend their faith in the Bible and try to carry out the 
universal postulate of evolution while the experts are try- 
ing to prove that it is true. It will occur to anyone, who 
has any regard for consistency in faith and religious life, 
that the experts and those who so easily accept their un- 
proven theories, would act more wisely to wait, them- 
selves, until they have reached their "final judgment;" 
then, if the proposition is proven, give it to the world with 
its proofs. But, if it is "a question of no religious sig- 
nificance whatever, whether the animal habitation was 
prepared by an instantaneous act, or by a gradual evolu- 
tionary process," then, why all this fuss? Why arrest the 
historic faith of the Christian world in an effort "to state 
it in the terms of evolutionary philosophy?" 

Flowing out of this indifference to the all-important 
function of faith, it was quite easy for the Evolution of 
Christianity to esteem lightly the question concerning an 
infallible source of faith. The idea of the Bible being 
such a book, it is attempted to make ridiculous in a para- 
graph containing the word "infallible and "infallibly" 
twenty-two times. One who feels that the Holy Bible is 
a sacred book given us by the Heavenly Father as a wit- 
ness, to testify to the world concerning His existence, His 
love, His Holiness, His power, His purpose and His provi- 
dence, does not feel like repeating such a caricature of 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 53 

those who cherish it as the only source of their faith and 
hope. From what other source could they know that 
the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, made heaven 
and earth and all that in them is? It is the only instru- 
ment divinely given to beget and conserve the faith that 
saves. 

But what does the Evolution of Christianity propose 
as a substitute for our infallible Bible? What are some 
of the infallible conceptions that control the evolution of 
the soul ? We can give only a few, such as : "The life 
of God in the soul;" "divine purity in a turbid stream 
indistinguishably combined with the impure;" "man and 
God in very essence one/' "God and man inextricably 
woven together so that they cannot be separated ;" "the 
very presence of God himself is in our hearts/' "God's 
laws wrought into the very fiber and structure of the 
soul ;" and many phrases of the same import, are concep- 
tions forced by the evolutionary theory into the Evolu- 
tion of Christianity; and conforming to that theory, sig- 
nify an essential, substantive movement of God and the 
human soul in one essence. 

The idea that "every man, as a son of God, is possessed 
of the "power to know God directly and immediately, — 
not a few mystics, or especially elected Saints or divinely 
appointed priests and prophets," — this, I say, cuts away 
the soul's hold upon the Bible as the source of the knowl- 
edge of God and divine things. If every man has power 
to know God directly and immediately, then what need 
is there of book, preaching, priest, or prophet. Since God 
is in the stream and however turbid it may be, however, 
"indistinguishably he may be combined with the impure;" 



54 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

if, for all that, every man has power to know him directly 
and immediately, then evolution must move on. Who 
can stop it if God is in it? This is fatalism and the con- 
ception has its place, variously modified, in every system 
of human philosophy the race has produced. Take, in 
connection with this, the conception that "God is some 
one inside his creation ruling in it, a spirit indwelling in 
all he has made, dwelling in nature as the spirit dwells in 
the body," and we have made very little progress beyond 
the mysticism of India, the pantheism of the Stoics and 
others down to Spinoza and the subjective philosophy of 
Hegel and other well known German speculators who 
have so widely influenced modern thought. 

It has been my constant care to faithfully represent 
the teaching of the Evolution of Christianity. It is a 
difficult task. There is an irreconcilable disagreement 
between its assumptions and the teaching of the Bible. 
Still the words of the Bible are employed but in such a 
way that the familiar, first meaning is expelled from them 
and made to give place to the unfamiliar and strange con- 
ceptions of evolution. We are thus confronted with 
strange phenomena; as it were, two conflicting streams 
of thought in constantly eddying circles, flowing within 
the same banks ; at one moment the stream runs clear and 
sparkling, but the next instant it is turbid, impure and 
dark. Sometimes the author seems to forget all his as- 
sumptions and writes with the simple faith in God and 
his word that he informs us he cherished when a child. 
May not the calmer, sweeter experiences of the years of 
innocent, trusting childhood reassert themselves, in the 
midst of the intellectual turmoil, consequent upon the 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 55 

purpose to carry through an assumption of whose cer- 
tainty he is not convinced. There are many passages 
whose sentiment I heartily wish could become universal; 
but they are disassociated from the theory of evolution; 
but the reader will often fail to see the fact. In the ef- 
fort to follow the evolutionary thought and group its 
conceptions, I have found it necessary to disregard the 
plan of the book. The last paragraph introduced the evo- 
lutionary method of evolving thought. 

Let us take one more step. Since "every man can 
know God directly and immediately," it becomes an im- 
portant matter to know how he knows divine truth. We 
will recall that the life of God is in the soul of man, and 
that this life, in common with all life, animal and plant, 
including the planetary system, is subject to the evolu- 
tionary formula; a continuous progressive change, ac- 
cording to certain laws and by means of resident forces. 
Now the Evolution of Christianity teaches us that "truth 
is immediately and directly seen by the soul," and that 
"inspiration is a universal and eternal communion be- 
tween a living God and living souls." Combining the 
conceptions of universal inspiration, immediate and direct 
knowledge of God and of truth, man and God in very 
essence one, and we have reached the terminus of all 
progress — evolution halts in the act of setting out. There 
is no space for evolution between things that in essence 
are one. There is no room for progress where the soul 
knows God and truth directly and immediately. The 
means by which all progress, intellectual and spiritual, is 
secured are abandoned. God, his life, his truth, his laws 
are all "within in the soul." And the Evolution of 



56 THE E VOL UTION THEOR Y 

Christianity has employed these conceptions because the 
distance, as well as the antagonism between the natural 
man and a pure and holy God is so great that evolution 
could begin in no other way, — God himself must become 
( 'indistinguishably " "inseparably," united with man ; and 
so, with the "direct and immediate" knowledge of God 
and truth, evolution ends — it ends where it proposed to 
begin. 

The thoughtful reader, who may not have access to the 
book we are criticising, will feel curious to know what 
use The Evolution of Christianity has for the Bible. In 
the first place, it is declared : "An infallible book is an 
impossible conception, and today no one really believes 
that our present Bible is such a book." (It is remarkable 
how liberally the universal propositon occurs on these 
pages.) "We have not the original utterances of the 
original writers." . "The Bible is not an infallible stand- 
ard of truth or life. It is the history of the growth of 
man's consciousness of God. It is the expression of God 
in human thought." 

We again ask : What use, then, is such a book ? We 
have not its original utterances ; it is not an infallible 
standard of truth and life ; it is the history of the growth 
of man's consciousness of God. What produced this 
growth? The evolutionist says "the direct and imme- 
diate knowing of God." 

Because a book does not contain all truth, is it, there- 
fore, fallible as to the truth it does contain? Is not one 
truth, revealed as a primary truth in a plan of revelation, 
though revealed 40 centuries before the particular truths 
included in it, as a universal postulate, just as true, just as 



CRITICISM OF ITS A P PLICA TION 57 

infallible, just as final, as it would have been if the whole 
body of truth, material and spiritual, logically flowing 
from it, had been revealed at once. Paul standing in the 
court of Mars, where the greatest philosophers of antiq- 
uity taught, did not change the truth announced in the 
first verse of the Bible. It was necessary for the godless 
audience before him to hear and believe this oldest declar- 
ation concerning God before he could attempt to 
free their minds from the darkness in which he 
found them. There was no evidence to Paul 
that the life of God was in them and that they knew 
him directly and immediately. Paul reminds them that 
they do not know the true "God who made heaven and 
earth and all that in them is." This truth is not an evo- 
lution. It is just as clearly stated in the first chapter of 
Genesis as it was four thousand years after and is much 
clearer than I find it stated in The Evolution of Chris- 
tianity, where God is a spirit in nature as the spirit is in 
the body, — and within, in man; and in very essense, one 
with man; and his life is in the soul of man. 

But we must still insist ; What use can the evolution- 
ist have for the bible? What use can it be to anyone? 
It is explained this way : "Revelation is not external to 
man, it is a psychological process; it is the creation of 
capacity,— moral and intellectual. In the nature of the 
case it can be nothing else." "Revelation is unveiling; 
but the veil is over the mind of the pupil, not over the face 
of the truth, — and can be removed only gradually, as the 
mind itself acquires a capacity to perceive and receive 
truth." "The Bible is not so much a revelation as a 
means of revelation — beyond all other books it stimulates 



58 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

the moral and spiritual nature, stirs men to think and 
feel, awakens their life, and so develops in them a capac- 
ity to perceive and receive the truths of the moral and 
spiritual order. God is not veiled, but man is blind ; and 
the Bible opens the eyes of the blind." 

Now, we begin to see ? We see how the theory in the 
turbid, impure stream seeks to inextricably and insepar- 
ably envelop the pure, clear truths revealed in the Bible? 
If they were in the Bible, then they would be "external." 
But The Evolution of Christianity has packed God, the 
life of God, the laws of God, truth, sin, redemption, in- 
carnation, heaven and hell, and some other things, away, 
in the human soul and put a veil over them, — no, "over 
the mind of the pupil, not over the face of the truth." 

We begin to see now ? But let us take plenty of time. 
The Evolution of Christianity informs us that "this no- 
tion of revelation, as something external, to man, is some- 
thing as inconsistent with the Scriptures as it is with the 
analogies of all education and the fundamental principles 
of psychology." 

That is very ungrateful to those who write text-books 
and think they are stating objective truths that are ex- 
ternal to the minds of students with the hope that they 
will learn them. If the theory of The Evolution of Chris- 
tianity were true, then the word "learn" should never 
have been employed and we should have been talking all 
this time about intuitional perceptions and knowing God 
and truth immediately and directly. The practice of the 
most enlightened men and nations is all wrong, if this 
evolutionary theory is correct. 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 59 

But we have reached a point now where we must more 
clearly understand the assumptions on which The Evolu- 
tion of Christianity rests. It will be helpful to give some 
of the leading propositions of a well known philosophy, 
that has influenced the thinking of many men and whose 
sentiments are widely repeated by those who never read 
it; for the sake of comparison. 

Hegel : The absolute Being, the God of man, is man's 
own being. God is man's revealed inner nature. 

Abbott : Man and God are in very essence one. God 
and man are inextricably woven together so that they 
cannot be separated. 

Hegel : The knowledge of God is the knowledge of 
ourselves, for the religious object is within us. 

Abbott : We are coming to think of God in men 
(italics his), not over men, so we are coming to think of 
the laws which God issues as in himself and in man, not 
apart from himself and over man — laws wrought into his 
(man's) nature and the very constitution of his being. 
Faith in God has gradually brought with it faith in the 
power of every man, — not of a few mystics, or especially 
elected saints, or divinely appointed priests and prophets, 
— to know God directly and immediately. 
• i -Hegel : Religion is the consciousness of the infinite; 
it is and can be nothing but man's .consciousness of his 
own infinite being. 

Abbott : Religion consists in the perception of the in- 
finite under such manifestations as are able to influence 
the moral character of man (quoting Max Midler). In- 
spiration is a universal and eternal communion between 
a living God and living souls. 



60 7 HE E VOL UTIO N THEOR Y 

Hegel : God is man's revealed inner nature — his pro- 
nounced self. Every being is all-sufficient to itself. 

Abbott : Revealing is a psychological process, it is the 
creation of capacity. God has made man after his own 
image and written his own nature in the human conscience 
and in human love, and then has interpreted by the mouth 
of his prophets what he has written in the hearts of his 
children. The divine and human are inextricably inter- 
mingled in one divine-human consciousness. 

Hegel : Since God is but our own being, the power 
of any object over us is the might of our own being. 

Abbott : I believe that the notion of secondary causes 
proceeding from a great First Cause must be set aside. 
We first hear the echo in prophet and epistle, then we 
listen for the Voice itself ; the very presence of God him- 
self is in our heart, and His eyes look love into our eyes, 
and His life is filling our life. 

Hegel : If you think infinity or feel infinity, it is the 
infinity of thought and feeling, nothing else. All limit 
ing of the reason rests on error. 

Abbott : Greek thought emphasized the truth that re- 
ligion is rational, and that all its articles of faith are 
consonant with each other and with reason ; and it pre- 
pared the way for the construction of a self consistent 
system of religious thought, a system which in all its parts, 
would realize the fundamental truth that there is possible 
such a perception of the Infinite as will naturally influence 
the mind and moral nature of man. Truth is infinite, 
and therefore transcends all definitions. 

Hegel : Religion is the solemn unveiling of the con- 
cealed treasures of humanity, the disclosure of its secret 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 61 

thoughts, the confession of its dearest secrets. The Chris- 
tian religion is the relation of man to his own being as to 
another being. 

Abbott : Revelation is not a final statement of truth, 
crystallized, into dogma, but a gradual and progressive 
unveiling of the mind that it may see truth clearly and 
receive it vitally. This notion of revelation as something 
external to man is as inconsistent with Scripture as it is 
with the analogies of all education and the fundamental 
principles of psychology. Revelation is unveiling, but 
the veil is over the mind of the pupil, not over the face 
of the truth. Revelation is the unveiling in human con- 
sciousness of that which God wrote in the human soul 
when he made it. In the heart of man God has written 
his message, his inviolable law and merciful redemption, 
because he has made the heart of man akin to the heart of 
God. Revelation is the upspringing of this life of law 
and love, of righteousness and mercy, under the influence 
of God's own personal presence and power. 

Whether The Evolution of Christianity consciously 
appropriated these conceptions and scattered them over 
its pages in many different phrases and modifications, or 
whether it is the agreement of two minds in the independ- 
ent pursuit of their own assumptions is not a matter of 
so much importance to us as it is to know what kind of 
fruit grows from the seed it is sowing. The devout and 
transparent Prof. Stowe, from whose History of the Books 
of the Bible the above statements of the teaching of the 
Hegelian philosophy are taken, gives the judgment formed 
of it, as a whole, by two of the world's greatest and saf- 
est thinkers. He says : "The venerated Neander justly 



62 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

characterizes the system as the philosophy of a one-sided 
logic, of intellectual fanaticism, and of self -deification;" 
and that "Prof. Schaff, his personal friend, calls this kind 
of Hegelianism an arrogant pantheism, different from ath- 
eism only in form, — a lifeless formalism of the under- 
standing, that destroys, at last, all soul in man and turns 
him into a pure speculator on the open heath, an unfruit- 
ful thinker of thinking, a heartless critic and fault- 
finder." 

The professor states with evident concern, although he 
wrote more than thirty years ago, how this philosophy had 
invaded the thinking of New England. It is heard in the 
lecture, read in the papers and sometimes proclaimed from 
the pulpit and taught in the institutions of learning, even 
in some theological schools. It produces a ruinous infec- 
tion in the intellectual atmosphere of the clubs and asso- 
ciations of every kind ; it inflates the vanity, heightens the 
self-conceit, and sets loose the passions of the young; so 
that the foundations of religion are removed before they 
begin to feel the need of it. 

We will leave the reader to reflect upon the dangers 
that necessarily attend the adoption of the theory that, 
law, God, truth, everything, are within, in the ,soul, writ- 
ten in it when it was made, and that it is out of the inner 
consciousness that we must receive the light or hear the 
voice that decides the part we will take in life, — we will 
leave the external statements of law, the external forms 
of religion, the external institutions of civilization, the ex- 
ternal revelation of the will of God, to stand or fall in the 
struggle for existence against the bigotry and fanaticism 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 63 

of an age in which every man shall think he is all-sufficient 
to himself — that he and God are in very essence one. 

Again we ask, what use can anyone have for our Bible ? 
The Evolution of Christianity replies : The Bible is a 
means of revelation; beyond all other books it stimulates 
the moral and spiritual nature, stirs men to think and feel, 
awakens their life and so develops in them a capacity to 
perceive and receive the truths of the moral and spiritual 
order. But a means of revelation cannot be the revelation 
also. A whip-lash is the usual means of stimulating, 
stirring, awakening, and developing capacity in a mule. 
But if the Bible brings no message from God to the soul 
as a revelation of his will, then* in what does it differ as 
an instrument applied to the soul from the driver's whip 
applied to the back of the mule? Capacity or energy is 
the product in both cases. 

We find another answer like this : "The Bible is the 
history of the development of the life of God in the life 
of a peculiar people ; and it traces the development of that 
life from lower to higher and from simpler to more com- 
plex forms. It is the record of a spiritual evolution; of a 
clearer and ever clearer perception of the infinite, under 
such manifestations as tend to produce a continually 
higher and stronger moral influence on the conduct and 
character of man." That full justice may be done the 
author of these conceptions of the Bible we read again 3 
"During these centuries (16, from Moses to close of first 
century), the religious teachers of Israel, the men who 
had in themselves the life of God, which is the essence of 
religion, who perceived in themselves and in life such a 
manifestation of the Infinite as produced a real change in 



64 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

their moral nature, instructed the people concerning this 
life, occasionally by writing, generally by speech." 

It is important to note that the Bible is the history 
of the development of the life of God in the life of a pe- 
culiar people, and that this development is a growing per- 
ception of the Infinite under certain manifestations. The 
life of God is in the soul, then who is the Infinite that 
exerts an influence under manifestations? The theory 
as frequently repeated does not permit God to be in ex- 
ternal manifestations. The teachers saw manifestations 
of uie Infinite in life and instructed the people concern- 
ing it. We will pass this question for the present. We 
read again : "The lessons which the divinely inspired 
prophet found in life and wrote into the already current 
history of a prehistoric age are alike inspired, whether the 
scientific and historical materials were revelations or tra- 
ditions." This proposition carried forward so as to in- 
clude the "religious teachers of Israel" will add their 
writings and sayings to the inspired lessons c i the di- 
vinely inspired prophet of prehistoric times. Now we 
are informed above that "the Bible is the history of the 
development of the life of God in the life of a peculiar 
people," also that "it is the record of an ever clearer per- 
ception of the Infinite, under certain manifestations." 
Notwithstanding these statements concerning the divinely 
inspired prophets and teachers and their equally inspired 
lessons and writings we are told : "The Bible is not an 
infallible standard of truth or life." The men, who wrote 
it "had in themselves the life of God and perceived in 
themselves and in life certain manifestations of the Infin- 
ite," and yet The Evolution of Christianity says in the 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPI1CA TION 65 

face of all this : "The history was written twenty-five 
centuries after the fall of Adam occurred. How did the 
writer obtain his knowledge of the event? He was not 
present, nor is there any reason to believe that Adam or 
Eve wrote the narrative. It is not, then, the testimony 
of an eye-witness. Did God reveal the facts to the his- 
torian? The historian makes no claim to having received 
any such revelation. Presumptively he gathered his ma- 
terial as other historians gather theirs, from such sources 
as were accessible to him, — legends, myths, traditions." 
The writer then strengthens this presumption by reference 
to the fact that such material is found in the ancient leg- 
ends of other nations, and especially by the work of the 
Higher Critics, or ''scholars," as he prefers it, who have 
hypothetically separated the book of Genesis into the nar- 
ratives of which it is composed, etc., etc., and concludes 
that the account of the fall of Adam "is not the funda- 
mental doctrine I once thought it to be." And this dis^ 
belief will be left by The Evolution of Christianity as a 
heritage to its readers ; unless they recognize the incon- 
sistency into which its theory has forced it, i. c, it af- 
firms the divine inspiration of the prophets and teachers 
of Israel, for the purposes of evolution; but denies what 
they wrote, when "the record of the development of the 
life of God,'' and "the perception' they enjoyed, "of the 
Infinite " do not conform to the evolutionary formula. 
Such a use of the Bible can be almost indefinitely exem- 
plified from the pages of this book, e. g. } " The details of 
the story of the creation of matter, the establishment of 
order in the material universe, the creation of animals 
and plants and finally of man ; the story of Eden and the 



66 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

fall of man; the trial of Abraham's faith in the sacrifice 
of Isaac; the protection of the worship of the true God 
by the conversion or destruction of the Canaanites and 
other idolatrous races, — the story of Joshua's long day 
and of Jonah as a rebellious messenger of God, etc. And 
then to add to our confusion we are told that we have 
not the original utterances of the original writers;" and 
yet they were divinely inspired to write. 

For more than fifty years the Bible has been shedding 
its light upon my heart and has been the guide of my life, 
while it has filled my future with glory, — not my own, 
but the glory of the Lord, who will permit His unprofit- 
able servant to enter it. I have never quarreled with the 
Bible, nor with its divine Author, because I did not un- 
derstand all there is in it. It has surrounded me with a 
flood of light which has been more than sufficient to meet 
my daily needs; and when I have longed to know more 
and have patiently and trustingly meditated upon the rec- 
ord God has given of his dealings with the children of 
men and also of their treatment of his methods and means 
of imparting and preserving in them that faith by which 
his children walk with him in true spiritual life, I have 
found that this also has been added unto me. I have 
cherished in my heart one of the precious sayings of the 
beloved Tholuck with much pleasure, because it is so scrip- 
tural and faithful as an expression of the experience of 
the. child of God. He said: "The Bible is like the. 
mother's breast; if you draw it gently, it will give you 
milk; if you force it, it will give you blood." That the 
evolutionary theory does violence to the word of the Lord 
in bringing it under its assumptions is sufficiently illus- 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 67 

trated already; and we pass to consider the last stage in 
the influence of the evolutionary theory and its assump- 
tions upon the thinking of him who subjects all thought 
to the subjective conception that all truth is final and 
authoritative only as it is found in human consciousness. 
"Consciousness is the final factor in the determination of 
every problem." 

The Evolution of Christianity furnishes abundant evi- 
dence of being pervaded by a profound and un-Christian 
mysticism. Attention was once directed to the unusual 
use of the word Infinite signifying a person. There can 
be no objection to saying that God is infinite, but it is not 
as an attribute of God that the adjective is personified as 
will appear from a few statements. It is said : "Life, 
God, Christ are not synonymous terms, but each of them 
expresses the finite apprehension of different phases of the 
Infinite." It is not conceivable how God can be a 
" phase" of himself; therefore, by a necessary inference 
we conclude that the Infinite is not God. Again in an- 
other place we read of "the inter-relationships of the Infin- 
ite." And again: "Life is the Infinite in nature as the 
scientist sees him, evolving out material phenomena ; God 
is the Infinite as the devout soul sees him, evolving out 
both material and spiritual phenomena according to the 
laws of growth or evolution; and Christ is the Infinite 
entering into human life, and taking on the finite, in order 
that he may achieve the end of all evolution, material and 
spiritual, in bringing men to know and be at one with 
God." And again : "Life — the Infinite and Eternal 
Energy — is the cause, not the product of evolution. God 
is the cause, not the product, of evolution. Jesus Christ 



68 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

is the cause, not the product, of redemption. The divine 
spirit pervades all life. In Jesus Christ the diffused spirit 
of God, the Infinite and Eternal Energy, from whom all 
things proceed is concentrated in a single human life. 
Christ is the secret of spiritual evolution, the type and pat- 
tern of that which will be wrought in universal human- 
ity when spiritual evolution is consummated. Inspiration 
is the breathing of God upon the soul of man; it is as 
universal as the race, but reaches its highest manifestation 
in the selected prophets of the Hebrew people." 

Little help is needed to discover the unscriptural con- 
ceptions contained in these utterances. The Infinite as a 
person, in whom there are interrelationships, of whom 
the inspired prophets had manifestations, while life, God 
and Christ are different phases of the Infinite. Who is 
this Infinite? And what is the diffused spirit of God? 
I say "what" because The Evolution of Christianity 
never speaks of it as a person. The "holy influence" 
and "his spirit" with small ^ is as near an approach as it 
makes, while Infinite, Energy, Eternal Energy and some 
other words begin with capitals. The moon has a mighty 
influence over our planet. Is it in this sense that we are 
to understand "influence" when it is called holy (of 
course not the same in kind) ? If that is the conception 
then why not talk of concentrated moon-shine ? 

It is well to remember in connection with these state- 
ments of the logical consequences of evolutionary thought, 
that it only pursues the course of all the great systems 
of philosophy and religion that have not had their origin 
in, and been controlled by, an external objective statement 
of the source of the doctrine and grounds of the faith 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 69 

therein, by which those accepting it should be guided. 
There are several speculative systems, mostly passed 
away, founded on some mystical, universal, eternal or in- 
finite conception, c. g. Confucius taught, 550 B. C, that 
"the universe is one animated system, made up of one 
material substance and of one spiritual being, of which 
every living thing is an emanation, and to which, when 
separated by death from its particular material part, every 
living thing again returns." Just so, I understand, The 
Evolution of Christianity, in order to be Christian, at- 
tempts to show how the fundamental conceptions of the 
Christian Scriptures and of the church can be arranged 
under the universal conception of the Infinite. 

One ought to feel afraid of himself in view of such re- 
sults. It is but a step into heathenism ; but when all dis- 
tinctions are obliterated between the children of God by 
faith in his Son, and those who reject him, those who 
make and worship their own gods; why should we hesi- 
tate to take that step. When it is believed that inspira- 
tion is as universal as the race, and that universal human- 
ity will be wrought into the type and pattern of Christ 
who is the secret of spiritual evolution; why would it be 
a very serious matter to be a heathen? It is transcen- 
dental to dream of the infinite, to feel the immensity of 
the universal, the unutterable vagueness of the myster- 
ious, and to talk of a boundless presence, the divine im- 
minence; one experiences a boundless expansion of per- 
sonal capacity, and swells with pride at the thought that 
he carries the life of God within, in his soul, and with 
a delicious "therefore" his guilty conscience softly slum- 
bers on the downy pillow of "every man being all-suf- 



70 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

ficient to himself;" and, in the consummation of evolu- 
ion, however he may have lived, he expects with uni- 
versal humanity to be wrought into the type and pattern 
of the life of Christ. As Milton sings : 

"He swims in mirth and fancies that he feels 
Divinity within him breeding wings 
Wherewith to scorn the earth." 
But I am tired of the free and vulgar use The Evolu- 
tion of Christianity makes of persons and things most 
sacred. It can be nothing short of blasphemy to put the 
pure and holy conception of God into the turbid stream 
of the impure soul-life of humanity. But that does not 
express it, — he is indis tin guish ably ', inseparably, and inex- 
tricably woven together with man, so that they cannot be 
separated. How different the conception of God con- 
tained in the Bible ! He dwelt in the Holy of Holies 
and with scrupulous care guarded his typical habitation 
against defilement by the entrance of anything unclean. 
Moses removed the sandals from his feet in the presence 
of the burning bush. Christ taught: "God is a Spirit, 
and they that worship him must worship him in spirit 
and in truth." Concerning the Holy Spirit, after prom- 
ising him to his disciples, he said, "Whom the world can- 
not receive." And yet there is no hesitation about put- 
ting God in nature as the soul is in the body and diffusing 
his spirit in universal humanity, and indistinguishably 
combining divine purity with the impure. This is surely 
blasphemy if the Jews blasphemed when they said that 
Christ cast out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of devils. 
The association of Christ and the Holy Spirit with an 
evil spirit as co-workers is not so vile as this conception, — 



CRITICISM OF ITS APPLICA TION 71 

the divine purity combining indistinguishably with the 
impure. About 4,500 years ago Jehovah cleansed the 
earth and destroyed all the race save eight souls, because 
"God saw that every imagination of the thoughts of the 
heart of man was only evil continually." Other instances 
are familiar. The thoughtful reader will ask how sin 
can be punished if the life of God is within, in the soul 
of the sinner, — being inseparable, God must punish him- 
self, and," sin with the sinner. 

It has been my sincere desire to state the evolutionary 
theory as it is stated in The Evolution of Christianity; 
and with equal earnestness I have sought to overthrow 
the theory as far as it has been taken up. There are 
other phases of the subject to be discussed, but if the ex- 
amination, so far, has discovered one exception to the 
universal formula, on which the argument for evolution 
rests, it breaks the chain and the theory falls. Dr. Lyman 
Abbott recognized this fact at the close of his book. He 
said : "When science seeks to formulate a law of life, it 
succeeds only in case the law provides for all the phenom- 
ena of life. If some of these phenomena are inconsistent 
with the supposed law, the supposed law does not exist." 
My contention is against a theory, which I regard 
fraught with inconceivable danger and loss to the church. 
I wish, however, here to repeat a sentiment, most truly 
and beautifully expressed by the Doctor ; and say that all 
my life I have fully endorsed it : "The church described 
in the New Testament is a tree, rooted and grounded in 
•Christ, a body, Christ the head ; a kingdom, Christ the 
king. The true church of Christ is one, but the unity of 
the church lies in the future. We shall not come to it un- 



72 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

til we recognize that loyalty to Christ — the historic 
Christ, the risen and living Christ — is the sole condition 
of union, and in that union is absolute liberty of thought 
of worship and of action. Christ the only Pope; Christ 
the only creed, they who possess Christ's spirit the only 
apostolic succession; and all who are in Christ one, be- 
cause they are in him and doing his work." But this is 
not evolution, — it is life from an external source, through 
faith in the Son of God. 

The next chapter will show what the phenomena of 
heathenism were and that they were inconsistent with the 
evolutionary law of life. 



IN MYTHOLOGY 73 



CHAPTER III. 



THE EVOLUTIONARY THEORY THAT ALL LIFE, 
INCLUDING THE RELIGIOUS LIFE, TS SUBJECT TO 
THE LAW OF " CONTINUOUS PROGRESSIVE 
CHANGE. ACCORDING TO CERTAIN LAWS, AND BY 

[ MEANS OF RESIDENT FORCES," SHOWN TO HAVE 
NO SUPPORT IN THE HISTORY OF HEATHENISM. 



I. IN THE DEGENERATION OF THE INTELLECT. 



Section i. — In Mythology. 

The Evolution of Christianity says : "History is but 
the record of the process of this evolution of the divinity 
out of humanity." 

The real history of man will never be written until we 
can write his thoughts, feelings and intentions. These 
three things are the attributes of free moral agents; so 
that the history of the human race can be correctly inter- 
preted and understood only when the external phenomena 
of its developments can be traced back to their sources 
in the thoughts, feelings and purposes of its individuals. 
The culture of a people is the permanent and uniform 
mode of exhibiting and asserting their prevailing 
thoughts, feelings and purposes and, of course, includes 
their manners and customs, arts and sciences, religions 



74 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

and laws. But the thoughts of individuals, hence also 
of nations, determine the character of both. The charac- 
ter of every civilization must, therefore, be estimated, to 
be estimated correctly, in the light of the inner life of the 
people concerned. And this leads us to recognize the soul 
as the spring from which human history flows ; and hence 
its history, in all its varied conditions, is the real history 
of the race. The mind is the constant quantity in human 
existence; it is that unit without which there can be no 
additions nor subtractions made in human progress; its 
possibilities remain the same through all the successive 
stages of its development; it, alone, of all created things, 
is endowed with its own imperishable life and laws of 
action; and its spontaneity finds play in a realm of life 
and a kingdom of facts where it is sole monarch. The 
attribute of self-determination, however feeble, will for- 
ever distinguish the soul from matter. Moral distinc- 
tions, the love of the beautiful, the powers of the will and 
the triumphs of reason, cannot be accounted for by any 
known law of matter. The mysterious realm within 
which resides the ultimate cell — the moncron — 
which the naturalist endows with attributes that could 
produce all the facts in the universe of mind and matter 
is not the realm of observation and experience; it is the 
realm of fiction, the realm of juggling with nature's 
problems, out of sight of honest minds. The soul, then, 
presents to the observer of nature, a distinct and peculiar 
class of facts, and is as much a legitimate object of study 
as matter. 

And, now, what has the human soul achieved during 
its nearly six thousand years' experience in the body? 



IN MYTHOLOGY 75 

The thoughtful student must look on the changing scenes 
of this drama with profound interest. He will realize 
that the experiment has been gokig on long enough to set- 
tle some things very clearly. He will estimate the facts 
he meets in the history of the soul's struggles as he esti- 
mates other things: by their harmony with the order of, 
nature and the lazvs of the soul itself. Whatever fails in 
either of these respects is false, and leads the soul into 
conflict with itself and the external world by which it is 
surrounded. 

It will be interesting, at the outset, to note a few things 
concerning the origin of the soul itself as a part of the 
order of nature. 

The race presents a common intellectual experience. 
The best confirmation of this proposition lies in the fact 
that, no matter how the thoughts of one race or nation 
may be disguised from other nations in its peculiar lang- 
uage, just as soon as we discover the meaning of the 
words or signs used to represent the thoughts of that na- 
tion, we immediately find ourselves familiar with the 
same thoughts, no matter what our signs of these 
thoughts may be. The writings of the Greeks, the Latins, 
the Egyptians, Persians, Chaldeans, Hindoos, and In- 
dians, present to the students no unfamiliar or incompre- 
hensible states or acts of the intellect. Indeed the trans- 
lation of one language into another would be impossible 
if the acts of the intellect were not the same in both lang- 
uages. The acts of forming judgments, or affirming the 
relation between subject and predicate, lies at the thresh- 
old of all thinking and by whatever name these essential 
elements of a judgment or affirmation may be called, the 



76 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

act of the mind is the same in every human being. A 
most noteworthy illustration is found in the translation 
of the Bible into so many different languages. Here is a 
book whose original language may have been familiar to 
Adam, in some of its most important elements; and, yet, 
our missionaries translate it into the languages of the 
heathen; or learn to speak these and tell the thoughts of 
the Bible to them in their own words. 

Again the physical organism through which the soul 
is acted upon by the external world is the same every- 
where. The common organs of sense considered as in- 
struments of the soul necessarily imply the same impres- 
sions from external things. The eye as an instrument 
adjusted to form correct images of external objects, places 
the soul in possession of the same notions of color, figure, 
etc. The soul as an agent stands behind the screen in 
which these instruments terminate and observes the im- 
pressions made by each. So that the universality of the 
possession of the same instruments, by which the soul 
communicates with the external world, leads us to the 
conclusion that the attributes of the soul so far as the 
capacity for knowing goes, are universally of the same 
kind. 

Add to these things the habits of forethought in stor- 
ing food and raiment, caring for comfort and health and 
providing for the common weal ; and we find all nations 
possessed of the same thoughts, however they may differ 
in their methods of realizing them. 

It will appear, also, from these and other considerations 
that the race is one, not many, in its origin. A disting- 
uished authority enumerates in support of this view "the 



IN MYTHOLOGY 11 



kindred emotions, sympathies, and appetities, the convic- 
tions of responsibility to law, and the establishment of 
political governments; the sense of dependence upon an 
Absolute Spirit and the propensity to some religious wor- 
ship ; the similarity of capacity in forming habits, coming 
under discipline and receiving cultivation." These traits 
are universal and point back to a common origin. On the 
assumption of diverse beginnings for the different 
branches of the human family, how can common traits, 
to the extent enumerated, be accounted for ? These com- 
mon attributes with unerring certainty lead back to a 
common intellectual and emotional source. The soul then 
is one nature separate and distinct from matter, because it 
everywhere possesses the same attributes, and these at- 
tributes differ everywhere and in every respect from the 
attributes of matter. Hence, also, the race itself is one 
race because it everywhere is found possessed of this one 
nature, the soul ; and it is thus shown to be true that God 
is "the father of spirits." 

Material force cannot be transmuted into the spontan- 
eity of the soul. This proposition, if true, presents an 
impassable barrier between the forces of matter and of 
mind. The theory concerning the "persistence of force," 
or "the eternity of matter and force" and "the convertibil- 
ity of force" cannot account for the spontaneity of the 
soul. The soul originates force and hence also motion, 
but without the interference of some external cause, mat- 
ter would remain forever in a state of inertia. In none 
of the forms or conditions of matter that have fallen 
under our observation have there at any time appeared 
intelligence, passion or volition. Indeed, until it is shown 



78 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

that everything does not produce after its kind, that the 
same causes are not followed by the same effects, it will 
be impossible to transmute the forces that belong to mat- 
ter into those belonging to the Soul. The assumption of 
the convertibility of material force into mind force is 
contradicted by all the facts of visible phenomena. So 
far as the "influence of the body upon the mind" goes, 
it is a misconception of the fact, for the supposed "influ- 
ence" is not observed until something about the body is 
out of repair, — it may be the stomach, it may be a broken 
limb, it may be malarial poisoning. The soul pulls on 
breaking strings. When the string is repaired and strong 
again, the supposed influence ceases and we think that the 
mind controls the body. The old saying, "A sound mind 
in a sound body," does no more than admit the necessity 
of a good instrument in order that the mind may do good 
work. The man who poses as an interpreter of nature 
and Revelation and speaks oracularly of "the wonderful 
chemistry that converts bread and butter into thought" 
may win the applause of the ignorant and thoughtless, 
but he will not be trusted by the earnest student of history 
and science. Such a thinker, to be consistent, might go 
one step further and write the history of mankind by 
ascertaining the quality of the food they ate, whether 
beefsteak or pork steak, baked beans or baked potatoes, 
clams or oysters. There ought to be, according to our 
observations on matter in all other respects, some connec- 
tion between a fine philosophical thought and the kind of 
food from which it was eliminated. 

It follows from these three propositions that man as 
presented to us in history is possessed of the same intel- 



IN MYTHOLOGY 79 

lectual, emotional and voluntary nature wherever he is 
found; also, that the attributes of this nature show it to 
be different from matter and lead us back to a common 
origin or parentage of the soul — an origin not conditioned 
by material law. And if this relation exists, then it fol- 
lows that the attribute of spontaneity is also an attribute 
of the original "Father of Spirits," but in an infinitely 
higher degreee than it is found in man. And finally it 
follows, that the human race is one in its origin, one in 
its essential nature, one in its attributes and hence also in 
its possibilities. And admitting this unity we must ex- 
pect the same results in the development of man under the 
operation of the same causes. And we must also recog- 
nize the capacity of man, by virtue of his original endow- 
ment of spontaneity, to resist the influence of forces acting 
upon him from whatever source and thus to choose be- 
tween motives and determine the direction of his devel- 
opment for himself. The theory of evolution which de- 
mands uninterrupted progress under the influence of "res- 
ident forces" would establish a reign of Fate more radical 
than was ever conceived by the heathen mind. 

The Evolution of Christianity assumes that the per- 
sonal presence of God is in the soul, that his life is there, 
and that he is revealing in human consciousness what he 
wrote in the soul when he made it. We will search for 
him in the intellect and sensibilities of the heathen. 

WHAT, THEN, ARE THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE INTELLECT 
IN MYTHOLOGY. 

Mythology is what the heathen thought concerning the 

gods and goddesses which they supposed ruled the world. 

Admitting the spiritual paternity of the soul and its 



80 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

superiority to all material existence on account of its 
capacity for spontaneous action, we will now select one of 
its endowments, the intellect or power of knowing, and 
inquire what it has done. This inquiry is made concern- 
ing the intellect as we find it among the heathen uninflu- 
enced by a revealed religion. This places the mind in a 
state of dependence upon its own resources and six thou- 
sand years is time enough and the whole of heathenism 
is field enough for a fair experiment. 

i. The first fact that arrests the attention is the fail- 
ure of the intellect to preserve in the world the idea of 
an Adequate First Cause. The importance of this idea 
lies in the fact that it is necessary as the starting point in 
all correct thinking. The child inquires for the First 
Cause as naturally as it breathes. The "Who made me?" 
is in every mind, and the answer is sought as a place on 
which the mind may stand. The Bible without explana- 
tion or proof furnishes this place to stand in its first sen- 
tence. This, as we shall see, the heathen mind lost and 
never found ; on the other hand, it wandered farther and 
farther from it. 

The reasoning process is very simple and at the same 
time universal. It may be illustrated by the formula : 

x is y. 
y is z. 



X is z. 
We can place the idea of the First Cause in this for- 
mula in this way : 

The First Cause created the heavens and the earth. 



IN MYTHOLOGY 81 

The heavens and the earth were created by Jehovah, 
the God of the Bible. 

Therefore : The First Cause is Jehovah. 

It is sad to follow the errors and follies of the human 
understanding in dealing with the "x" of this syllogism. 
The Romans and the Greeks put in its place, first Chaos, 
then Uranus, then Saturn, then Jupiter, each accompan- 
ied by his own female or females and numberless chil- 
dren. Here we have three orders of gods, forming what 
we might call dynasties. The head of each is descended, 
except Chaos, of course, from the head of the preceding 
house of gods and goddesses. And he comes to his place 
on the throne by treachery, intrigue and violence. Gen- 
erating force, — not creative, absolute, spontaneous energy, 
— was the kind of force employed by the gods to produce 
the world. The relations of Chaos, Gaa, Eros, Tartarus, 
Erebus, Night, Day, iEther, Heaven and Earth are ex- 
amples. The conflicting myths do not change this prin- 
ciple. Hence, those who believe the mythologies of the 
dead past, peopled the heavens and the earth with gods 
and goddesses who held sway over every conceivable sub- 
division of time, of land, of sea and of sky. The universe 
was thought of as a living being. The world possessed 
a soul, from which the souls of men were derived and 
nourished as their bodies were derived from and nour- 
ished by the world body. The stars were gods and every 
part of the universe had life. It is readily seen, without en- 
tering into further detail, that reason had lost the idea of 
one absolute, spiritual source of all things, who, unaided 
and because he willed to do so, created the universe. The 
intellect had lost the "x" of creation and substituted the 



82 THE E VOL UTION THEOR Y 

sexual force of reproduction. Hesiod affirmed that "ev- 
erything came into being out of four original causes ; 
Chaos, Gaa, Tartarus and Eros." Other poets assumed 
that "Chaos alone was the first original cause of things 
and derived everything from him. Still others derive 
heaven and earth from Chaos, but Eros finishes up every- 
thing else." (Conv. Lex. Art. Chaos.) 

These relations become more gross as we pass from 
one dynasty of gods to the other. "Uranus was the son 
of Erebos and Gaa. His mother bore to him the Titans, 
Cyclops and Centimani. He hated his children and im- 
prisoned them in Tartarus immediately after their birth. 
Their mother, enraged at this treatment, incited her son 
Saturn, one of the Titans, to wreak vengeance on his 
father." And in gratifying the desire for revenge the 
unnatural relation in which the offspring of a god, urged 
on by his mother, with the adamantine sickle, deprives his 
father of the power of generation, by emasculating him. 
And thus the power of one ruling house of gods is swept 
away and another begins. The head of this order of 
things was Saturn, and he, too, after a ten years' war 
with his son Jupiter, was overthrown by superior force 
and skill. All the brothers and sisters, children and 
grandchildren of Saturn, are on the side of Jupiter, the 
rebel god. Where now is the world's x? But I forbear 
from following the heavy wing of reason as she helplessly 
descends in her flight. The meshes of the net of sense 
and sight are too close for her escape. Held in its grasp 
she peoples heaven and earth with creatures of the imag- 
ination, clothed in all the weaknesses, passions and vices 
known to man. "The gods are immortal men and men 



IN MYTHOLOGY 83 

are mortal gods." The Absolute Cause of all things is 
lost forever. 

Proceeding upon the same general principle, the Egyp- 
tians placed Ammon in the place of x. In their Mythol- 
ogy he is the concealed god from whom proceeds the 
generating force of nature. He was the head of the 
first system or dynasty of eight gods and goddesses from 
whom all things had their beginning. Succeeding these 
and descended from them was another order of twelve 
divinities, gods and goddesses. It is not necessary to 
name them, nor recite their deeds. Following these there 
arose another order of five gods, known as the Osiris and 
Isis system. This is the last and most important system 
of the Egyptians. The theory of metempsychosis enabled 
them to multiply their divinities almost infinitely, and 
they worshiped the Sun as Ra, the Earth, the Air, the 
Nile in its inhabitants, the frog, the crocodile and the 
ichneumon ; on land they worshiped the cat, the sheep, the 
goat, the ox, the ibex and also numerous kinds of plants ; 
and all these were regarded as possessing or having in 
them a divinity or spirit of some kind. And for these 
gods and goddesses they waged relentless wars. In one 
district the cat was sacred, in another the goat, in another 
the sheep ; and for killing one of these a man forfeited his 
life. Here again the x is lost. The intellect falls help- 
less under the power of the things it' seeks to understand, 
and there is no hand to help it rise. 

In Chaldea, Baal and Astarte take the place of x. Baal 
begins with the chaos of darkness. He separates the 
heavens from the earth. He brings the world to order. 
He peopled the earth by commanding one of the gods to 



84 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

cut off his head and then mixed the drops of blood with 
earth, whence sprang forth men and animals. Blood 
from the wounds of this divinity like that from the wounds 
of Uranus is supposed to possess generating power. The 
child's question, "Who made this god?" cannot be an- 
swered so long as reason holds that x possesses only gen- 
erating force. The only x that can give reason a resting- 
place is the Absolute Spirit who acts spontaneously and 
begins everything in his own will. 

The Assyrians and Chaldeans worshiped the sun and 
the moon. Fire was their substitute on earth and they 
called it Ur. They gloried in his strength and challenged 
other gods to contend with him. An Egyptian is said to 
have hit upon the means of robbing Ur of his glory and 
the Assyrians and Chaldeans of their vain-glorious pride. 
Eusebius is our authority for the story that an Egyptian 
priest "caused the figure of an idol to be made of porous 
earth and the belly of it was filled with water. On each 
side of the belly holes were made, but filled with wax. 
This being done, he challenged the god Ur to oppose his 
god Canopus, which was accepted by the Chaldean priests ; 
but no sooner did the wax which stopped up the holes in 
the belly of Canopus begin to melt than the water burst 
out and drowned the fire." (What the World Believes.) 

The contact of the Jews with the people of Chaldea, 
Persia, Assyria and Media cannot have failed to furnish 
the great minds and leaders among their people, such as 
Zoroaster, the opportunity to become acquainted with the 
Hebrew Scriptures. It is certain that Zoroaster modified 
the belief of these people and made it more consistent 
with the idea of monotheism. So that we pass these 



IN MYTHOLOGY 85 

nations by with the remark suggested by the story above 
given from Busebins, that the gods and goddesses in all 
these lands, including Greece and Italy, have long since 
left off producing worlds and are supposed to be chiefly 
concerned in the quarrels of men ; so that it not infrequent- 
ly happened that whole provinces were depopulated to de- 
cide whether the cat or the crocodile were the stronger 
god. And the Roman general, when he had conquered 
his enemies, prayed to their gods and goddesses. "If 
there be a god or goddess who has taken this city and its 
people under its protection, Deity, whomsoever thou may- 
est be, I pray thee, I adjure thee, to forsake this people 
and city, to withdraw from this city and its temples, and 
come to Rome, to mine, that our city, our temples, our 
sacrifices, may be acceptable to thee. If thou wilt do this, 
I vow to thy divinity temples and games." Afraid to 
leave the patron god or goddess behind him, he offers a 
bribe to secure his desertion of those who expected of 
him protection. Where is x? The slave of the passions 
and ambitions of men. 

"The first objects of worship among the Hindoos are 
supposed to have been fire, air, water, earth and space, 
together with the heavenly bodies and aerial beings." In 
the beginning of all' heathen religions there is a striking 
resemblance. Unsatisfied with these first conceptions, 
however, the worshipers have sought something that 
would give rest. Like all the other nations the Hindoos 
invented Brahma, the original sea of unindividuated spirit, 
existing in eternal repose, a state of nolition and passivity, 
while from him emanated the world and all individuated 
things and beings. He was at first the Almighty creator, 



86 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

preserver and destroyer. To return to him and be lost 
in his passivity and nolition was supposed to be the high- 
est attainable happiness. But this thought could not 
hold sway long. His attributes are bestowed upon other 
gods, and we find Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the pre- 
server and sustainer, and Siva, the destroyer. Besides 
these a number of inferior gods preside over death, hell, 
fire, medicine, wind and the atmosphere. They wor- 
shiped human beings, beasts, such as the cow, the mon- 
key, the dog, the jackal, also birds, trees, rivers, fish, 
even books, stones and logs of wood. And, surely, if one 
created thing is x, why not another? The intellect can 
reason about those things only which fall under its ob- 
servation and within its experience. Other things must 
be revealed. 

The Chinese at the beginning supposed x to be one 
Supreme Being. At an early day, however, they associ- 
ated with him a number of other objects of worship under? 
the name Shin. Later they added wind, rain, thunder, 
diseases, etc. — all personified and addressed as divinities., 
They worshiped the sun, moon and stars. There were 
gods that presided over the sea, agriculture, war, domestic 
affairs, the products of the earth, old bachelors, mirth 
and voluptuousness, criminal and innocent amusements. 
And so the progress of reason is downward, — pulled 
downward by the falsehood which lies in the premise 
which should contain the name of the true and only God. 
What a wonder ! How sad ! How universal the result ! 
Where is the hand that can lead the understanding back to 
the path it has lost? What is more irrational than to ask 
us to repeat the experiment ? 



IN MYTHOLOGY 87 



These examples are certainly sufficient to sustain our 
proposition : 'The human intellect has failed to preserve 
the idea of an adequate First Cause." These are the great 
and populous heathen nations of antiquity and of the pres- 
ent. These statements of the views of these nations con- 
cerning the First Cause have not been selected from par- 
ticular sections of their history suited to our purpose, but 
they are the postulates on which they reasoned from stage 
to stage in their history — from its dawn through all its 
gradations up to the Augustan age of each, — the zenith 
of its learning, power and glory — and then down into the 
silence and gloom of dead nations. 

A little reflection on this material reveals to us several 
important lessons : 

i. The earliest notions of a First Cause were the sim- 
plest and purest and in several important particulars re- 
mind us of the Bible narrative of Jehovah creating the 
heavens and the earth. The Grecian, Egyptian, Chaldean 
and Chinese ideas clearly reveal the memory of original 
Chaos, the establishment of order and introduction of life 
and man into the world by some sort of divine agency. 

2. It teaches us that the progress of human thought, 
unaided by Revelation, has been downward and not up- 
ward in its effort to find the First Cause. The first idea 
of Him is soon identified with nature and then multiplied 
indefinitely until everything is a god. We see the thought 
of one Supreme -Being degraded to his children, to men, 
to animals, and even to plants and inanimate things. 

Paul is fully vindicated, therefore, when he says : "For 
the invisible things of Him, since the creation of the world, 
are clearly seen being perceived through the things that 



88 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

are made, even his everlasting power and divinity, that 
they may be without excuse, because that knowing God 
they glorified him not as God, neither gave thanks, but 
became vain in their reasonings and their senseless heart 
was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they 
became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible 
God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man and of 
birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things." Rom. 
i : 20-23. 

Has the intellect made "continuous progressive 
changes" from a lower life into a new and higher life in 
these conceptions of a first cause ? And if the life of the 
true God was in them revealing in their consciousness the 
things he wrote in the soul when he made it, why was 
there a constant decay of the older and better conceptions 
of divinity and the appropriation of others more vile and 
corrupt? The phenomena do not sustain the theory of 
The Evolution of Christianity. 

S E CTion II. — In Ph ilosophy . 

The Evolution of Christianity says : "Revelation is the 
unveiling in human consciousness of that which God wrote 
in the human soul when he made it." 

But the minds of thoughtful men grew weary of the 
endless processions of the gods and goddesses and began to 
question the reality of the stories in which the popular 
conceptions of the First Cause, or rather causes, were per- 
petuated. But to deny these stories left the world with- 
out a cause. What does the knowing faculty now do? 
Does it go upward or downward in its search for the "x" 
which it feels it must have as a starting and standing place. 



IN PHILOSOPHY 89 



Here is a fair opportunity to see what will be done. 
There is no "tyranny of faith" to interfere with the larg- 
est, freest and highest use of the powers of the intellect. 
And, too, the greatest minds of the race devote their powers 
to the study of the problem: Given a world to find x. 
Did these grand thinkers — for such they were — rise to the 
idea of a spiritual, absolute, spontaneous, omnipotent 
Cause? Did the attributes of the human soul suggest 
that in harmony with the order of nature they could only 
be derived from a source possessed of the same, — that this 
source must be the Father of Spirits from whom these 
attributes came ; that He, like His offspring, must be pos- 
sessed of the attribute of spontaneity and that He is the 
only being in the universe that could originally put forth 
volitions and thus cause motion and direct it to the ac- 
complishment of an end or purpose. Does it lie within 
the power of the finite mind to make this sublime leap 
upward ? On what ladder can it climb ? On what mount 
of vision can it stand and harmonize the world with all 
its diversity and complexity in one broad, universal truth 
that explains all ? The finite mind can no more create a 
truth than it can create a world. It may and does dis- 
cover truths and their relations, but never created one. 
In the formula, "x is y" we know x and we know y and 
on comparing them the mind declares the judgment x is y. 
The same is true of the judgment, y is z. Now the mind 
has two judgments for comparison and reaches the con- 
clusion x is 2, because both x and z have been found to 
agree with y. In this process there is no truth created; 
but relations between the terms, x, y and z, are discovered, 
some of which were unknown before. 



90 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

And likewise I think it follows that once the mind has 
lost the idea of the true First Cause, it is impossible for it 
to recover it. For the moment we attempt to affirm that 
this or that is the First Cause as the result of our inquiry, 
we assume that we already knew what the First Cause 
would be like, which is inconsistent with our assumption 
of ignorance. Paul said of the heathen "that they were 
separated from the life of God through the ignorance that 
is in them." He also asked, "For who among men know-* 
eth the mind of a man save the spirit of the man which is 
in him," and then made the application, "Even so the 
things of God none knoweth save the Spirit of God. We 
received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which 
is of God that we might know the things that are freely 
given to us by God." And he also affirms that the natural 
man cannot receive these things. I will reserve the state- 
ment of consequences until we see whether history sustains 
these statements of inspiration. 

The soul sought its First Cause in the world of obser- 
vation and experience, having abandoned the personal 
Creator revealed to it at the beginning. We are slow to 
admit this proposition when we feel the adulations of pride 
and worldly glory. "Know thyself" is often repeated 
as one of the wisest maxims. But it is all that it is possi- 
ble for the soul to know in the absence of revealed truth. 
The world of observation and experience, however, has 
lying over against it the unknown world, whose existence 
is the necessary suggestion of the soul in the presence of 
the thought of the known world. The soul cannot do 
otherwise, therefore, than "strive to look beyond the cold 
and barren peaks of an eternity past and eternity future." 



IN PHILOSOPHY 91 



They are ''cold and barren" because they mark the limits 
of the known and stand as the untraversed barriers be- 
tween us and the unknown. And when the apostle of ob- 
servation and experience proclaimed his gospel : "That 
we cry aloud and there comes no answei but the echo of 
our own wailing cry," he unwittingly illustrates a philos- 
ophy which is deeper than his enmity to the revealed truth 
of the Bible and forces him to bear testimony against the 
crime he commits against the outcry of his own soul. No 
man can see who extinguishes the only lights that can 
guide him. No man can hear who silences on the cross 
the only voice that can speak to him. The only realm, 
therefore, within which the unbeliever and the heathen 
can find the First Cause is the realm of observation and 
experience. The unbelief of to-day and the heathenism 
of long ago occupy common ground. But we now con- 
sider the proof. 

Six hundred and forty years before Christ was born, 
Thales, a Grecian philosopher, put forth as the x of our 
syllogism, that water was the cause of all things, that all 
things came into being out of water and returned to it. 

Anaximander, his fellow-citizen, pupil and successor, 
taught that the cause of all things was matter in a state 
of chemical indifference, acted upon by force. Aristotle 
is our authority for the statement that he assumed force to 
be united with an undifferentiated condition of matter 
from the beginning. 

The process by which the world was made was simply 
elimination or differentiation. First heat and cold, then 
water from a mixture of the two, and by a series of acts 



92 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

of this kind he produced the earth, the air and a fire crust 
or casing, which enveloped all the world. 

Miletus follows closely upon both of these in the same 
city with the theory that the first cause of all things is the 
air. He meant our corporeal atmosphere, which was in- 
finite, always in motion, continually changing its form and 
forever engaged in producing derived forms of existence, 
which resulted from rarefaction and condensation. 

Diogenes of Appollonia adopting this theory added in- 
telligence and said that the atmosphere is not only the orig- 
inal source of all things, but also that it is that essence 
in which resides life and intelligence in men and animals. 

Between 540 and 500 B. C, the School of Pythagoras 
taught that number is the essence of everything; that 
number is law and the bond that holds the world together, 
the reigning power over gods and men, the condition of all 
distinctions and of all that is knowable and at the same 
time the substance out of which all is formed. Upon 
Aristotle's authority they dealt with numbers as magni- 
tudes occupying space and that the geometrical figures are 
the substances of which corporeal things consist. The 
regular solids, therefore, are employed in building up all 
bodies and the world. And the moral qualities as well 
as the shapes of things are caused by the number and 
kind of these magnitudes. The central germ of the uni- 
verse was fire. This was one, a monad, or moneron, in 
their theory. It was the first body of the world, the 
mother of gods, and because the formation of the heavenly 
bodies proceeded from it, it was the altar of the universe, 
the watch tower, the fortress or throne of Jupiter, because 



IN PHILOSOPHY 93 

it is the center in which the force that preserves the world 
resides. 

About the last half of the Sixth Century, Xenophenese 
asserted the absolute unity of all things, and reduced the 
polytheism of natural religion to a philosophical panthe- 
ism. Out of this one substance came forth all that is — 
it is God. So that God and the world stand related to 
each other as substance and phenomena. Through the 
agency of water the world would again return to its orig- 
inal slime and then be reproduced with all its inhabitants 
as before. 

About half a century later, Parmenides carried this doc- 
trine to the extreme of denying the reality of all phenom- 
ena, as a mockery of our senses, and held that only the 
unit out of which the world proceeded had "existence 
and thought.'' 

Zeno, about 495, sought to prove that the original unit 
contained everything in itself and that multitude or many 
was impossible, that motion is impossible and that no body 
can pass from one point to another. 

Melissus defended the theory of his master, Parmen- 
ides, by developing the thought in time and space, and 
affirmed the eternity, infinity, unity and unchangeableness 
of that which really exists. 

Heraclete, about 460 B. C, saw the inconsistencies of 
these different systems and sought to find a principle that 
would explain everything and harmonize the conflicting 
theories, by taking his stand between the two extremes. 
He admits the reality of the unity of all things and also the 
reality of multitude and affirms as the principle which 
unites both and makes the world, transition from one to 



94 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

the other, "becoming." There is no unchangeableness in 
the world, but change of one thing into its opposite is the 
law and order of the universe. That medium through 
which this never ending conflict is* carried on is fire. Ev- 
erything is exchanged for fire as goods are exchanged for 
gold and gold for wares upon the market. It is only in 
the union and harmonizing of opposites that anything can 
exist. 

Empedocles, in 440, profiting by all that his predeces- 
sors had said, announced as the x in the problem of the 
world's existence, that the four elements (earth, air, fire 
and water) were the "root elements" of all things and 
ascribed to each an unchangeable existence. Everything, 
therefore, came into existence and ceased to exist by means 
of mixing and unmixing these primary elements. The in- 
exhaustible variety in the world was explained by the dif- 
ference in the proportions of the mixture. But he added 
two forces, attraction and repulsion, to move these four 
unchangeable substances in forming the manifold bodies 
of the world. 

About this time the Atomists presented their views of 
the x. They derived all distinctions in the world's phe- 
nomena from an indefinite number of component parts, 
which are alike as to quality but different in quantity. 
These component parts are indivisible and unchangeable 
atoms. They differ only in weight, size and shape. The 
cause of the endless combination of these atoms was as- 
sumed to be in the atom itself. Two atoms meeting in a 
vacuum would cause an extended movement all around 
them and the vacuum presented the condition neces- 
sary to the union and separation of atoms. Atoms of dif- 



IN PHILOSOPHY 95 

ferent weights floating in space would collide and thus 
would begin the grouping together of similarly formed 
atoms, and thus the world would come into existence and 
again be dissolved. 

Closely related to the theory of Atomists was that 
of Anaxagoras, who gave it as his view of the x that all 
things were together, endless in number and infinitely 
small, then the Nous (intelligence) came to them and 
set them in order. Intelligence was not identical with the 
particles of matter, but existed by their side. 

We have now reached a point at which we enter upon 
the transition from the materialistic systems of philosophy 
to the idealistic as developed by Socrates or rather his 
pupil, Plato. 

Between the two lie the strange views of the Sophists 
who resemble the French rationalists, or Encyclopedists, 
of modern times. They were the avowed enemies of the 
existing religion and all the received notions of the gods. 

The x of the Sophists was a minus quantity; that in 
general there were no objective predicates and definitions* 
that contradictory predicates must be accepted as equally 
true of the same thing ; that it is equally correct to dispute 
both for and against upon all subjects; that nothing ex- 
ists per se } but that everything is a matter of subjective 
conception, opinion and arbitrary conceit. 

Gorgias (427), one of the most famous Sophists, in a 
book concerning "'Non-existence, or Nature," undertook 
to prove that nothing at all exists because what is said 
to exist can be neither a non-existence nor an existence, 
because an existence must either have come into existence 
or not have come into existence — but both of these are un- 



96 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

thinkable. And so reason, for the want of a place to 
stand, an adequate x, swallows itself, — plunges into the 
fathomless overthrow of itself after chasing every propo- 
sition given it in observation and experience in the hope 
of finding an explanation of that same world which it 
knows in experience, but whose existence it denies in 
theory. It is now apparent as it ought to have been at 
the outset, that the world cannot be an explanation of it- 
self, that no effect is identical with its cause. Jehovah's 
inspired penmen have truly said of this result: "I will 
destroy the wisdom of the wise and will bring to nothing 
the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? 
Where is the scribe ? Where is the disputer of this world ? 
Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 
For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom 
knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preach- 
ing to save them that believe." 

Socrates shared the general view of the Sophists and 
declared his contempt for the struggles of the past in the 
study of the philosophy of nature and mathematics. He 
found in what he called "irrational nature," so little that 
was a worthy object of study that he regarded it as only 
an external means to an external end, and that the whole 
external system of nature existed solely for the accom- 
plishment of external designs. Accordingly, he refused 
to go out walking because he said, " We can learn nothing 
from grasses and landscapes." But while he denied real- 
ity to the external world, he found it in the nature of the 
mind; and regarded the world of free subjective thought 
as the measure of all things. So that his famous "Know 
thyself" has no higher meaning than that each individual 



IN PHILOSOPHY 97 

should clearly define in his own mind his own thoughts 
and notions. And in this world of thought he found the 
only reality and sought to establish in it an unconditioned 
intelligible world of objective truth, firm and independent 
of the caprice of the subject. 

Plato carried this principle through to its last conse- 
quence. Aristotle gives us the most reliable information 
concerning his motive in the adoption of his speculative 
views and the principle on which he founded them. 
Plato, he says, adopted the theory of ideas or the ideal 
doctrine, because he convinced himself of the truthfulness 
of the theory of Heraclete concerning visible phenomena, 
and held that they were kept in an eternal transition. If 
it is held, reasoned Plato k 'that knowledge of something 
is possible and that there can be an intelligent conception, 
then there must be other existences besides those that are 
sensible, which possess unchangeableness, for there can 
be no knowledge or science of that which is in perpetual 
transition or change." (Schwegler 53.) It is easy to 
see that the reality of the world of ideas was a necessity 
arising from the accepted theory that all visible phe- 
nomena are unreal, and, accordingly, the idea is made 
the ground of all existence. And now in the language of 
Schwegler (656) : "Taken all in all, we must regard it 
as probable that Plato held both the idea of God and the 
idea of good as identical, but whether he thought of this 
highest cause more nearly as a personal being or not, is a 
question to which there can scarcely be a clearly defined 
answer given. The logical sequence of the system ex- 
cludes a personal God. . . . The most probable view 



98 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

is that he never definitely considered the question concern- 
ing the personality of God." 

Protagoras (440 B. C.) said: "I cannot know con- 
cerning the gods whether they exist or do not exist, for 
there is much to hinder us from knowing it, the darkness 
of the subject as well as the shortness of human life." 
(Schwegler 25.) Neander says (E. H.) : "Plato says 
in the spirit of all antiquity that the father of all is hard 
to find and it is impossible to make him known to every 
one when we have found him, and the Brahman thinks the 
same thing today." 

Those who have thoughtfully attended to these brief 
statements of the principles proposed by these philosophers 
as explanations of the existence of the world in which we 
live, will now, if they did not before, concede the propo- 
sition stated at the opening of this branch of our subject: 
"The soul sought the First Cause in the world of obser- 
vation and experience, having abandoned the idea of the 
personal Creator revealed to it at the beginning." All 
the elements of matter separate and combined have been 
proposed as the causes of the world. Those, who want 
fire to build the world with, have found plenty of that in 
these theories. Those who want "fire-mist" and "world- 
dust" have found that. Those who want a central monad 
or an undifferentiated condition of matter have found 
that. Those who want the eternity of matter and forces 
have found that in all its possible phases. And we land, 
in the judgment of two of the latest representatives of the 
modes of thought of antiquity, in the ideal world as the 
only reality and are compelled to live in perpetual contra- 
diction of all our senses. An idea is more real than a 



IN PHILOSOPHY 99 

stone and a definition is more substantial to the soul than 
bread and drink to the hungry lips. 

Reason at last, weary and without a place to stand, 
folds her exhausted wings, and closes her eyes to the 
questions that call her forth to her flight and says in the 
Stoic, "I will live in solitude without ideas." This is 
called the apathy of the soul, the suppression of the judg- 
ment and the reason. It is the absolute skepticism in 
which the intellect found itself enthralled after its long 
and fruitless search for that first truth which explains all 
other truth. 

Please bear in mind that we have made an induction of 
the more important facts which illustrate the trustworth- 
iness of the powers of the intellect in its efforts to pre- 
serve the true conception of a First Cause. We have 
followed it along two of its freely chosen lines of activ- 
ity : First — In dealing with the idea of a personal First 
Cause. Second — In dealing with the question concern- 
ing the origin of the world after having abandoned a per- 
sonal Cause as the adequate explanation. 

We have found at every step along both lines that the 
progress is downward instead of upward, from the most 
obvious and rational to that which places reason in an ir- 
reconcilable conflict with itself and the facts of observa- 
tion and experience. There is nothing more irrational 
than the denial of the existence of the world of observation 
and experience — to deny all that is given us through the 
five senses, or objective existence. 

I think, therefore, that we may emphasize what the 
Scriptures so abundantly teach and what the experiment 
of heathenism for six thousand years teaches ; and heathen 

IrfC. 



100 THE E VOL UTION THE OR V 

philosophers have confessed : That man by searching 
cannot find out God. 

Be the soul then a monad, an exceedingly rarefied con- 
dition of matter, a mode of the existence of God, or any- 
thing else ; its history in the world does not vindicate the 
claim that is made for it that it is moving under an orig- 
inal impulse or is possessed of the conditions which insure 
its salvation. 

So far as the intellect, at least, is concerned, its history 
demonstrates that it can neither preserve nor create the 
truth of a personal God and Father, who alone can create 
a world and save it. The theory of ''progressive change" 
under the guidance of a "resident force," is thus shown 
to be without support in history, so far as the activities 
of the human mind are exhibited in Mythology and Phi- 
losophy. 

II. IN THE DEGENERATION OF THE SENSIBILITIES. 

The Evolution of Christianity says: "So, in the heart 
of man God has written his message, his inviolable law 
and his merciful redemption, because he has made the 
heart of man akin to the heart of God." 

I have not aimed to treat the activities of the soul, as 
presented to us in history, in such a way that our conclu- 
sions can be affected one way or the other by any theory 
that has been held concerning the substance of the soul it- 
self. Whether the soul is a highly rarefied condition of 
matter or not does not and cannot set aside the testimony 
of consciousness that these activities or states are the 
common property of all. Any one who has disciplined his 
mind to attend to the facts of consciousness will find a 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 101 

common experience which belongs to mankind — an experi- 
ence which is not confined to any nationality, race or clime. 
It has always been true that the sensibilities have been in- 
fluenced by the states of the intellect. The thought of a 
beautiful landscape, a virtuous or a vicious deed, the pa- 
triot, hero, father, mother, brother and sister, each excites 
its own proper emotional state ; and these thoughts are held 
before the emotional faculty by the intellect ; so that there 
never would have been a proper action of the sensibilities 
had the intellect forever slumbered. This view seems to 
be sustained by all the instances in which the intellect has 
not enjoyed the influence of the external world to excite it 
to action. It should also be remembered that the same 
states of the sensibilities are always produced by the same 
causes. 

From this brief statement of the relation of the sensi- 
bilities to the intellect, it will be readily perceived that 
the idea of the First Cause held in the intellect during 
the history of the race will play a most important part in 
influencing the sensibilities. For as it is the supreme 
thought in reason, so also 'and even more so it is supreme 
in its influence upon the sensibilities. It is written : "The 
fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." "Fear" 
in this use of it is the beginning of all pure and holy sen- 
timents. 

First. Following the usual classification, the nat- 
ural sensibilities found their highest gratification in 
the creation of the images of the gods and the erection 
of their temples. Art among the heathen races was essen- 
tially idolatrous, while Hebrew culture, for the reason 
that it was not idolatrous, produced no art. So mighty 



102 THE E VOL UTION THE OR V 



was the influence of the two opposing notions of deity or 
the First Cause upon these two radically different streams 
of human history. Whoever studies the sesthetieal tastes 
of the ancients without recognizing the influence of their 
false notions of the First Cause in forming them, will ut- 
terly fail to form a correct judgment upon the subject. 
The idea they formed of the beautiful, the grand or 
sublime was suggested by the attributes they supposed to 
belong to the god or gods they worshiped. 

"The essence of all paganism," says Prof. Cox, "is a 
recognition of the forces of nature as god-like, stupen- 
dous, personal agencies — as gods and demons. 
They fancied that everything had the same kind of life 
which they had themselves. They came to think that the 
sun and stars, the rivers and streams could see and feel 
and think and that they shone or moved of their own ac- 
cord ; they spoke of everything as if it were alive." It is 
easy to see, therefore, that the idea of divinity could not 
be separated from the sesthetical emotions in the heathen 
mind. Thus the ministry of nature was corrupting and 
degrading. Gods and goddesses were associated with all 
her forms and the love of the beautiful was perverted into 
the degrading passions of the personal divinities that 
filled the world. And so long as nature was thus identi- 
fied with divinities, possessed of personality and passions 
like men, purely sesthetical emotions were impossible. 
Hence, beauty as an abstract quality of nature was un- 
known to the heathen mind. 

They talked of the clouds that scud along the sky as 
the cows of the sun, which the children of the Morning 
drove every day to their pastures in the blue fields of 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 103 

heaven. When you convert the vast, blue dome over our 
heads into a cow pasture there is not much roorr; for the 
sentiment of grandeur and sublimity. Beauty in sculp- 
ture was nothing more than copying the voluptuous or 
gigantic forms of the human models. Moral and spiritual 
beauty were inconceivable to minds that could not feel 
the shame and degradation of sin. And nature was ani- 
mated, personified and degraded to share in all the pas- 
sions of human nature. Hence, the only office of art was 
to make vice and shame attractive. 

Second. The natural affections were perverted and 
destroyed. 

(a) The sentiment of humanity was unknown to both 
rulers and people. Nations and races were obliterated, 
plundered, enslaved, without regret. Force gave the vic- 
tor the right of life and death over his captives. Alexan- 
der, hearing that the Thebians rejoiced at the rumor of 
his death, though they were kindred Greeks, demolished 
their city and sold 30,000 of the inhabitants into slavery. 
In Italy 12,000,000 slaves groaned under the unchecked 
power of cruel masters, although they comprised three- 
fourths of the entire population. And why should not 
this be so among men who believed in gods and goddesses 
that made war upon and imprisoned and tortured each 
other ? 

(b) Both the paternal and filial affections were 
crushed or perverted. 

The father held the mother and her children as prop- 
erty and exercised the power of life and death over 
them. The exposure of feeble children and aged parents 
was regulated by law. And both father and mother 



104 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

joined in the worship of gods that were supposed to re- 
quire as a pleasing service the sacrifice of babes. We 
today think with horror of parents laying the innocent 
babe in the red hot arms of Moloch or casting them upon 
the waters of the Ganges or into the cruel jaws of the 
crocodile. 

(c) Antiquity could not place a proper estimate upon 
human life. Hence, the gladiatorial shows, in which the 
game involved the lives of the actors, were demanded 
for the amusement of the people. Vast amphitheaters 
were erected by the munificence of emperors where 50,- 
000, 90,000, 150,000, and 385,000 people could assemble 
and gaze upon the actors while they played the grim game 
of death. Nineteen thousand soldiers fought in naval 
conflict upon the clear waters of Lake Fuciuns until the 
last man's blood had tinged them with its redness to 
amuse the emperor and people who gazed on them from 
the shore. The womanly heart forgot its tenderness and 
sweetness and waved her applause to the victor while 
his sword was still wreaking with the blood of his fallen 
victims. In the midst of such scenes she could receive 
the amorous caresses and indulge the intrigues of rival 
lovers with no sense of the absurdity of the part she was 
acting. And while we may feel the inconsistency of such 
shows with every gentler sentiment of the human soul; 
and, much more, with the purity of divine worship, yet 
these games were opened with offerings and prayers to the 
gods. These vast assemblies breathed an atmosphere 
that delighted the senses with the most delicious odors, 
and so thoroughly were the masses captivated by all these 
influences that their two great wants were "Bread and 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 105 

Games." Even Seneca, whom some have blasphemously 
compared with Paul, advised those who were tired 
of life that ropes and precipices provided a remedy. And 
in India voluntary suicide is regarded as an act of great 
merit and in many parts of the country the people drown 
their children in the Ganges as a pious offering to the 
goddess. The Stoics taught and recommended suicide 
when it seemed that life could no longer be endured with- 
out dishonor. Many distinguished men acted upon this 
teaching, like Seneca and Zeno. 

And now could we expect any juster view of life where 
the common dependence of all upon the same Giver of life 
is not known? Where the dignity and worthiness of 
human existence is not understood? The man who ad- 
mits that the same Creator made us all will feel towards 
his fellow-man as he cannot feel without this admission. 
But expand this thought in the light of the Bible revela- 
tion, and add to the idea of creation the idea that this 
same Creator loves his creatures and watches over them 
as a father pitieth his children; that he saves them 
through the gift of his Son and freely offers them eternal 
life; and we can see that heathenism was not provided 
with the means of arriving at a true conception of the 
value of life. The forces were not "resident" in it that 
could produce that conception and give it authority over 
the conscience. It was impossible that it should have 
any higher conceptions than those derived from the nar- 
row range of observation and experience. The x is still 
the indispensable factor in the development of correct 
sentiments as well as in the process of correct reasoning. 



106 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

But now we touch the keyboard whence comes the 
notes that vibrate through the ages with a swell that 
never dies. I mean the awful roll of 

THE VOICE OF CONSCIENCE. 

Conscience is entrusted with the especial task of detect- 
ing right and wrong relations. But before a relation can 
be decided to be right or wrong, it must be known and 
felt that it exists. The logical order of all relations must 
spring up in the mind from the accepted notion of the 
First Cause. If this First Cause is creator of all things, 
then conscience concedes to Him the right to the owner- 
ship of all things. It not only does this, but declares 
that all created things rightfully owe to Him their ex- 
istence and all that is possible to that existence. This is 
the ground upon which the claim of the God of the Bible 
as the Creator of the Heavens and Earth to being their 
rightful ruler, is based. The Sabbath commemorates the 
completion of the work of creation because in that com- 
memoration is kept alive the sentiment of obligation to 
worship the true Creator only. The mind is so constituted 
that it cannot feel that it would be right to take from the 
Creator the love and worship due to Him and bestow 
them on some being who did not create. And creation, 
whether we understand all that the word means or not, 
is the only act that can clothe any being with the absolute 
right to rule unquestioned. The eternity of matter and 
force, therefore, is a theory which before the bar of an 
unbiased conscience, robs the God of the Bible of the 
authority that is necessary to enforce the obligations of 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 107 

conscience and love; for love and duty spring from the 
same original conception. 

But we have already seen that the intellect failed to 
preserve in the world the idea of an adequate First Cause. 
We now ask what this failure cost the heart and the con- 
science. 

Already one part of our answer has been anticipated : 
The heart was robbed of the sweetness and blessing of a 
true development of the natural affections. The thought 
of a Divine Creator and Father of all was lacking and 
there was no means left by which the affections could be 
exalted and purified by discovering the relations of all to 
a common Father and Benefactor. The heart was 
crushed with fear of the gods and hence "they were all 
their life-time subject to bondage." They never knew th* 
freedom of adopted children. The great heart-cry of the 
heathen world was a cry of ignorant fear; and it sought 
to appease the angry gods by the sacrifice of all that was 
dearest and best, in the vain hope of moving to pity the 
senseless objects of their worship. Under such influences 
the sentiment of humanity could not flourish. Men who 
felt that they could rightfully take their own lives could 
easily excuse the taking the lives of others. Heathenism 
did not understand the brotherhood of man, because the 
offspring of a common Father. On the contrary, every 
province and every race had its own divinities and a war 
of races was at the same time a war of the gods and god- 
desses they worshiped. 

Parental and filial affections could not be maintained 
because Uranus was believed to have shut up his children 
in Tartarus because he feared one of them would de- 



108 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

throne him, which was done by Saturn and he, from the 
same fear, hoped to destroy his children by swallowing 
them ; and yet Jupiter, his youngest son, rose in successful 
rebellion against him, overthrew and banished him. In- 
deed Mythology abounds in stories of the insubordina- 
tion, insurrection, murder and intrigues of the gods and 
goddesses. In Egypt, Typhon conspired against his 
brother Osiris and secured his death by nailing him up 
in a beautiful sarcophagus, having induced him to get into 
it under pretense that he should have it as a present if it 
fitted him. Indeed, instances which represent the gods 
as disregarding all the obligations imposed by both pa- 
ternal and filial relations seem to occur as a matter of 
course. No wonder the home life was degraded and its 
tenderest ties disregarded. It was easy for parents to be 
reconciled to the theory of the Spartan kingdom which 
required the children to be taken from their homes and 
trained in homes provided by the state that they might for- 
get the love of father and mother and become hardened 
to military life. It was held that the natural affections 
rendered them effeminate. And if these sentiments are 
not exhibited in the conduct of the gods, why should they 
be among men? Think of the tender manifestations of 
filial affection in the life of Jesus toward his heavenly 
Father and his supposed human father and mother and 
we will find the force that remedies this measureless evil 
in the heart of the godless nations. But having refused 
to retain the true God in their knowledge, they could not 
Know his Son. 

But the conscience suffered most from the absence of 
a true conception of the First Cause, for it had no perfect 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 109 

standard to guide it and the soul was in darkness as to the 
true relations it sustained to its Author and to the world 
in which it was found. Having lost the x in the problem 
of the world and being unable to restore it, the discovery 
of right relations to the real First Cause was impossible. It 
holds good all through human history that the nations 
were "separated from the life of God through the ignor- 
ance that was in them." No touch could restore the "lost 
chord," but the touch of God. There was no impulse 
found in the soul that could infallibly restore these lost 
relations. The true God and Heavenly Father was not 
known in the inner consciousness of the soul. 

Accordingly the ten commandments were written by 
"the finger of God" on two tablets of stone, the one defin- 
ing and most solemnly guarding right relations to Him- 
self ; the other, right relations among men. Proceeding 
from God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth, these 
relations are accepted without argument by the conscience 
as right. No argument is needed to produce the decisions 
of conscience in favor of the obligations imposed by the 
Creator upon His creatures in this statement. The soul 
was constituted by its author to feel its obligations to its 
divine source as soon as its true relations to Him are re- 
vealed to it. In the absence of this revelation, we may 
now inquire what some of the moral influences were that 
came to the soul from the ideas of the gods accepted 
among the nations of the earth. 

First. The character of the gods, as portrayed in 
Mythology, was corrupt and to them were attributed all 
the vices that belong to men, as already shown. The 
myth was to the heathen what the gospel is to us. The 



110 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

stories of the gods and goddesses were told everywhere 
and were employed as the sole sources of thought and 
information on subjects pertaining to deity. And it 
should be remembered that statesmen found in these stories 
an element of power which they unscrupulously used tQ 
strengthen their authority over the people. The inven- 
tion of stories was resorted to for the sole purpose of 
arousing the fears of the ignorant masses, lest the anger 
of the gods should be let loose upon them, and thus it was 
sought to render them more willing to obey their laws. 
Now the only legitimate effect of the contemplation of 
the vicious characters of the gods and goddesses was to 
inflame in the minds of their worshipers the like vices, 
which already burned too strongly. And thus by the 
inevitable law of like begetting like, the heathen nations 
were made more vicious and immoral by the very act of 
worship itself. Jupiter, in the stories told of him, was 
nursed by a sow or fed by three nymphs, who concealed 
him from his father Saturn as part of a scheme of decep- 
tion practiced by his mother at his birth to prevent his 
father from swallowing him. And yet Jupiter came to 
be the highest and most potent character among the gods. 
The stories of his conduct, however, represented him to 
the minds of young and old as practising the grossest im- 
moralities and all the gods and goddesses as imitating his 
example, and hence there came no voice from the sky 
condemning the sins in men, which were practiced by the 
gods they worshiped. The story of Jupiter represents. 
him as the husband of eighteen earthly women before he 
rose to the divine honors of god of heaven and earth. Of 
these wives, demi-gods were born. He then married a 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 111 



divine character called Metis, who assisted him in a 
scheme to release the children swallowed by his father, 
Saturn. The means employed was an emetic prepared 
by Metis, which she induced Saturn to swallow. The ef- 
fect was the reproduction of all of Jupiter's brothers and 
sisters; and, among them, the stone swallowed as a sub- 
stitute for Jupiter when he was born. Jupiter then placed 
himself at their head, freed the Titans imprisoned in Tar- 
tarus by Uranus and began war upon his father. The 
two hostile forces fought from the summits of opposite 
mountains — Jupiter from Olympus, and Saturn from 
Orthys. The conflict lasted ten years and was so fierce 
that the earth trembled and the forests shook; mighty 
giants tore up oaks from their roots and hurled them at 
their enemies ; gods, having each a hundred hands, threw 
great stones and Jupiter added his terrible thunder bolts. 
The victory was at last Jupiter's and he became ruler of 
heaven and earth, his brother Neptune was god of the sea 
and Pluto god of the unseen world. In addition to these 
there were many thousands of subordinate gods and god- 
desses. This continued to be the view of the gods pre- 
sented by the gospel of heathenism until the gospel of the 
Son of God dispelled the system of lies and doctrines of 
demons and revealed from heaven the one true God and 
Father to the benighted soul. 

But it will be profitable to penetrate the chambers of 
the gods and goddesses a little more nearly to catch a view 
of their life and conduct as they were described in the 
myths or heathen gospels to the minds of the people who 
worshiped them. And it should be remembered that 



112 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

these stories were accepted by the masses as veritable 
transactions and the actors as real persons. 

Jupiter was the father of numerous children by all the 
goddesses, but, at last, he married his own sister, Juno, 
who became the beautiful queen of heaven. "This mar- 
riage was called the sacred marriage." The nymph Chi- 
tone not only refused to attend it, but indulged in raillery. 
Hermes was sent in search of her and found her in her 
house, which was on the bank of a river. He threw the 
nymph into the river and transformed her into a tortoise, 
which was condemned to carry its house upon its back 
as a punishment for raillery ; and perpetual silence was en- 
joined upon her." 

Juno was jealous in the highest degree, and to stop her 
complaints, Jupiter often had recourse to violence. He 
punished her cruelties towards Heracles by suspending 
her from the heavens by a golden chain, and hanging an- 
vils to her feet. Vulcan attempted to release her, for 
which Jupiter threw him out of heaven and his leg was 
broken by the fall. This fall occupied a whole day and he 
landed on the island of Lemnos. 

Juno resented with great severity any infringement on 
her rights as queen of heaven or any apparent slight on 
her personal appearance. 

At the marriage of Peleus and Thetis, all the deities 
were present except Eris. Indignant at not being in- 
vited, she determined to cause dissension, and threw into 
the midst of the guests a golden apple with the inscription 
on it "For the Fairest." The claims of all others were 
obliged to yield to those of Hera, Pallas, Athene, and 
Aphrodite (Venus), and the decision was left to Paris, 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 113 



king of Troy, who, ignorant of his noble birth, was at 
that time feeding flocks on Mount Ida. Hermes con- 
ducted the rival beauties to the young shepherd. Juno 
promised Paris extensive dominions if he would award 
the prize to her; Minerva promised fame in war; Venus 
promised the fairest of women. The last, the queen of 
beauty, was awarded the apple and Paris soon afterwards 
carried off Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. 
Juno was so indignant that she persecuted not only him, 
but all the family of Priam, whose dreadful sufferings 
and misfortunes during the Trojan war were attributed 
to her influence. 

At one time Juno, being deeply offended by Jupiter, 
determined to separate herself from him, and accordingly 
took up her abode in Eubcea. Cithseron, king of Plataea, 
advised Jupiter to drape an image in bridal attire, place 
it in a chariot, and announce that' this was Plataea, his 
future wife. Juno, incensed at the idea of a rival, flew in 
great anger to meet the procession, and, seizing the sup- 
posed bride, she furiously tore off her nuptial attire. Her 
delight on discovering the deception was so great that a 
reconciliation took place, and committing the image to the 
flames, with joyful laughter she seated herself in its place 
and returned to Olympus." 

But these stories might be multiplied indefinitely. This 
is sufficient to show how the masses of the people received 
their impressions of the gods and what the influence must 
have been upon them. If any one should reply that there 
were thinkers in those times who did not believe these 
stories, then the reply is at hand : That the evidence is 
abundant that they added to them by inventing new ones 



1 14 THE E VOL UTION THEOR Y 



for political reasons and were wholly unable to offer them 
anything better. Pliny, as quoted by Dr. Uhlhorn, sets 
forth as an assured result of science that there are no 
gods ; for, he says, Nature alone is God, the mother of all 
things, the wholly immeasurable universe ; and with freez- 
ing unconcern he draws the comfortless conclusion insep- 
arable from this view of the world : "There is nothing 
certain save that nothing is certain and there is no more 
wretched and yet arrogant being than man. The best 
thing that has been given to man amid the many torments 
of this life is, that he can take his own life." Again he 
quotes Strabo as saying: "The irrational populace is al- 
lured, like children, by the fables of the gods. For it is 
not possible to impart intelligence to the crowds of women 
and common people and lead them by philosophical teach- 
ing to piety, reverence and consciousness. This must be 
done by superstition which cannot exist without fables 
and marvelous tales. For, the thunderbolt, the trident, 
the dragon of the gods are myths, as is also the old the- 
ology. Founders of states have approved such things as 
bug-bears for the simple." And again, quoting Seneca: 
"All that ignoble crowd of gods which the superstition 
of ages has collected we will adore in such a way as to 
remember that its worship belongs rather to usage than 
reality. The wise man will unite in all these observances 
as commanded by the laws, not as pleasing to the gods." 
Varo distinguished three kinds of religion : "The myth- 
ical for poets, the physical (Natural Religion) for philoso- 
phers and the popular for the masses." Sextus Empiricus, 
though thoroughly skeptical, said: "Following the 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 115 

custom, we affirm that there are gods, and that they exer- 
cise a providence and we honor them." 

Now we clearly see that those who pretended to pos- 
sess knowledge superior to the masses had nothing that 
they could impart to them and that, while they did not 
believe in the existence of the popular gods, they were 
hypocrites in supporting their worship. But surveying 
this whole field, the gladiatorial shows of the play with 
death, the conduct of the gods and goddesses, we turn 
from such scenes, says Dr. Uhlhorn, with abhorrence. 
Antiquity had no such feeling. We should search in vain 
its literature for expressions which censure and repudiate 
this shedding of blood. Even a man like Pliny praises 
games which do not enervate the minds of men, but on 
the contrary inflame them to honorable wounds and con- 
tempt of death as they perceive in slaves and criminals 
the love of praise and desire for victory. Seneca calls 
them a ''light amusement." 

But one more thought concerning the popular worship. 
It is no doubt well understood that a large share of this 
worship was image worship. Uhlhorn tells us on this 
point that courtesans, a class of women who in ancient 
times enjoyed great honors and privileges, gave them- 
selves as models for images of the gods so that when the 
people lifted up their hands to them they lifted them up 
to prostitutes. Just that condition of things followed from 
all this that we would naturally expect. Men plead the 
example of the gods and goddesses in justification of their 
crimes. And the abyss was dark and deep into which 
heathenism fell, led on by the gods she worshiped. Se- 
neca has given us a picture of his times in these words : 



116 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

"All things are full of iniquity and vice. More crimes 
are committed than can be remedied by force. A mon- 
strous contest of wickedness is carried on. Daily the lust 
of sin increases, daily the sense of shame diminishes. 
Casting away all regard for what is good and honorable, 
pleasure runs riot without restraint. Vice no longer 
hides itself, it stalks forth before all eyes. So public has 
iniquity become, so mightily does it flame up in all hearts, 
that innocence is no longer rare; it has ceased to exist." 
(Uhl. 95). Livy says: "Rome has become great by 
her virtues till now, when we can neither bear our vices 
nor their remedies." 

From all this we are ready to understand that men had 
no correct idea of sin as sin. The inner life of the soul 
was not understood. The gods were worshiped with- 
out reference to the state of mind it excited. As the dis- 
tinguished author already quoted, Dr. Uhlhorn, says : 
"Ancient life was directed to this world, not to the future. 
Pleasure in existence, joy in the ever new glory of the 
world, in the beauty and greatness of human life, was its 
fundamental characteristic. The belief in immortality, 
firmly held at least so long as pagan faith retained its vi- 
tality, did not at all change this. For the dead were 
thought of as still turning over toward this life." 

O, sad and wretched outcome! And is this the end 
of the world's great drama ? Is this the highest achieve- 
ment of the human soul cut loose from the First Great 
Cause? Must the actor play his part and then pass off 
the stage to linger near, gazing in silence and unseen upon 
the new actors that come and go ? Must the soul with all 
its powers unabated, linger cha ring against the boundary 



DEGENERA CY OF SENSIBILITIES 117 

of the scene and with unsatisfied longing turn forever to 
scenes and activities in which it can take no part? Only 
the x can answer. Only that intelligence, that begirts 
the horizon of our ignorance, can answer. Only He, who 
stands ready to lift us up when heart and flesh shall fail, 
can answer. 

A life in the presence of God, crowned with immor- 
tality and possessed of "an inheritance that is incorrupt- 
ible and undented and that shall never pass away" was 
unknown to heathen thought. Vast multitudes held the 
idea of transmigration, others held to the theory of the 
loss of individuality in returing to the great ocean of 
unin dividual ed spirit, and others still, that the future 
state is a shadowy pantomime in which the scenes of this 
life are repeated without pleasure; still others expected 
a residence with, not in, the stars, for the stars were gods. 

To sum up briefly the lessons we have learned from 
this hasty and necessarily limited view of a great theme, 
we state: 

i. Without a knowledge of x the reality and blessed- 
ness of the future life was not known to the heathen. 

2. The corrupt character of the gods and goddesses 
worshiped by the idolatrous nations, corrupted the 
thoughts, perverted the conscience and prevented any 
clear idea of the nature of sin. 

3. While some statesmen and philosophers affected 
not to believe in the existence of the popular divinities 
they hypocritically sanctioned their worship and knew 
nothing better to substitute for them. 



118 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

4. It is evident that the more earnestly such divini- 
ties were worshiped the more corrupting and ruinous 
the consequences would be upon the worshipers. 

5. We have seen the natural affections crushed and 
perverted in acts of worship rendered to the gods as a 
service pleasing to them. 

6. We have seen the sentiment of humanity crushed 
and supplanted by the desire for power, revenge and 
plunder. 

7. We have found that the ancients did not know the 
value of life because they did not know the God that 
gave it. 

8. We have seen that without the idea of the First 
Cause as Creator of heaven and earth, the soul could 
never discover its right relations to either God or man. 
That it is only in viewing life as related to a personal 
Creator that the conscience can render right decisions on 
the relations which we sustain to both man and God. 

9. We have seen that the beauty, grandeur and 
sublimity of nature was banished from the world by the 
deification of herself and all her forces, thus giving them 
personal attributes and passions instead of the beauty, 
grandeur and sublimity that belong to all the works of 
creation. 

10. We have also seen that in this deification of nature 
the intellect has made progress downward rather than 
upward, i. c, from a simpler, purer conception of the 
First Cause to a more irrational, degrading and corrupt 
one. 

11. We have learned that reason cannot create a truth 
and that having abandoned the First Cause, she was shut 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 119 



up to only such facts as are presented in the realm of 
observation and experience. 

12. Accordingly, we have found that the old phil- 
osophers sought to explain the world by supposing one 
or more of the material elements to be its cause, i. e., 
reasoning in a circle, they have sought to explain effects 
by means of effects — to explain matter by means of mat- 
ter. 

, 13. We have seen that the soul found no rest in this 
endless pursuit of the chain of causation, or, rather, that 
it was ceaselessly exchanging one link for another. The 
soul can only rest in a cause that is itself uncaused. 

14. We have found every modern theory of skeptical 
science, in its important features at least, advocated by 
these old thinkers, who, like all unbelievers, had nothing 
but matter with which to explain matter. 

15. We have seen the unsatisfied and weary soul fold 
her wings because she found no rest, like Noah's dove, 
in an external world, and deny its reality and return 
within itself to rest in the inner consciousness; for the 
thinker could not doubt that he thought. Hence the 
ideal world became the only real world. 

16. And then from this ark of supposed safety, driven 
by the ever recurring contradiction presented in con- 
sciousness between an external world and the ideal 
theory, we have witnessed the humiliating act of the abso- 
lute negation of the reality of anything. Hence Paul 
could say to the Corinthians concerning the preaching of 
the gospel : "It was not yes and no, but yes to the glory 
of God." 



120 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

Do men who are asking us to substitute for faith in 
the great personal First Cause a theory of matter, be it 
the evolution theory or "eternity-of-matter-and-force" 
theory, desire us to try this sad experiment, running 
through more than five thousand years, over again ? The 
moment we begin to think matter into a condition to 
produce the world, that moment we begin to put our 
feet in the tracks of the heathen philosophers whose mar- 
velous failure lies before us. 

The reader will be interested in a summary of these 
facts by the author of the article "Cosmogony," in the 
"Encyclopedia Britannica." I change the interrogative 
to the affirmative style. He says that "a theory of the 
origin of the world is never found on the lowest stage of 
human culture, and when it is formed it is at first of the 
simplest character — two elements, no more, are neces- 
sary. With regard to the first there is a consensus of 
opinion among primitive races that before the present 
order of things, water held all things in solution. To 
make pregnant this vast abyss a creator or organizer is 
necessary, who is educated, at least not infrequently, from 
the abyss itself. There is a Japanese myth reported by 
Mr. Tyler, while the earth is still soft like mud or like 
oil floating on the surface of the water, there arises out 
of the mass the flag or rush called Asi, from which there 
springs the land forming god." 

"The ancestors of civilized races, when they conceived 
of the sun, moon, wind, earth, sky and sea, had no such 
ideas in their minds as we attach to these names. They 
thought of them as living, human beings with bodily parts 
and passions. Of course their conduct was on as much 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 121 

larger scale than human actions as these beings were 
supposed to be greater physically and mentally than 
human beings. These gods were incestuous, were sin- 
ners of nameless sins, they disguised themselves in ani- 
mal shapes; they tasted human flesh; they amused them-? 
selves with obscene jests; they died and were buried i 
they were born and their birth-places were known. Zeus 
is the heaven and woos the earth or lower air, and takes 
the form of a bull or a cuckoo. He deceives Hera by 
celebrating a false marriage with a log of wood. He 
tries to expiate his amour with Demeter by his conduct 
to the ram. He was the father of noble houses of the 
gods yet adopts the shape of an ant, a swan, an eagle, a 
bull, and a serpent. The other gods had their amours 
and their animal metamorphoses. Cronos mutilates his 
father, and takes his mother for a wife and swallows 
down alive each of his own children whom he afterwards 
disgorged. Dionysius is supposed to mean wine and its 
influence ; and his mysteries record the most unspeakable 
conduct among his worshipers. No wonder Arnobius. 
an early Christian apologist, asked the heathen, how, if 
the myths represent pure natural facts and phenomena, 
do they come to be crowded with the obscene details 
which disgusted philosophers six hundred years before 
Christ. So that these ancestors of civilized races 
regarded the pure facts of nature presented to their minds 
in the sky, wind, sun, moon, earth, sea, etc., as practically 
men having all the powers attributed to real human per- 
sons." 

'They sustained relationship to animals and possessed 
the ability to be transformed and to transform others 



122 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



into animals and other objects. They had also magical 
accomplishments and could visit or procure the visits of 
the dead, and had control over the weather. So that all 
the great forces and elements of nature considered as 
persons are involved in that inextricable confusion in 
which men, beasts, plants, stones, sun, moon, stars, sky, 
earth, air and sea are all on one level of personality 
and animated EXISTENCE. This is the philosophy of 
savage life and it is on these principles that the savage 
constructs his myths." 

And the deplorable fact remains that while the ances- 
tors of all idolatrous races thought these things and 
taught them to their children, still the latest generations 
of their offspring, however much advanced in civiliza- 
tion, have never been able in a single instance without 
external aid to free themselves from the notions their 
fathers conceived of the gods and their attributes. "The 
fathers ate sour grapes and the children's teeth were set 
on edge." And there was no resource to which the sub- 
jective method of thought had access in the inner con- 
sciousness that could remedy the evils which some of thq 
most advanced thinkers, such as Socrates, Plato, Seneca 
and others clearly saw in these degrading conceptions of 
the gods ; no resource that could provide a pure conception 
of God and his worship. 

They knew not. nor could they know, any other gods 
than those of their ancestors. "The world by wisdom 
knew not God" is the declaration of Revelation as well 
as history, and before these false gods could be dethroned 
some other more worthy must be presented to them 
from without under conditions that would secure accept- 



DEGENERACY OF SENSIBILITIES 123 

ance. And hence, also, the moral elevation and improve- 
ment of the heathen races would have remained impos- 
sible, because their minds could find no higher motives to 
virtue than the examples of their gods; and they could 
know no more of the nature of moral perfection than 
what they could learn from the conduct of the beings 
they worshiped. For the idea of God in every age and 
in every nation is the central idea, from which, like a 
sun, the course of the nation has been directed. If that 
light has been treacherous and false, the nation has been 
wrecked upon the shoals of its own vices. And it is in 
this way that the historian can explain the death of the 
buried nations found along the banks of the Nile, the 
Euphrates, the Tigris and the Tiber. 

In consideration of all these facts, I feel that there 
is but one legitimate conclusion: that the phenomena of 
heathenism furnish no support to the evolutionary theory 
of "continuous progressive change, according to certain 
laws and by means of resident forces;" but, on the con- 
trary, the progress has been continuously downward till 
it has ended in national death and decay and the moral 
and spiritual blindness of the individual. And this has 
happened to those possessing the same mental endow- 
ments the Christian has ; but they did not have the Chris- 
tian's God and Father, nor did they have his Son and 
Holy Spirit. 



127 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE ANTAGONISM OF THE THREE GREAT WORLD- 
SPIRITS MAKES THE CONCEPTION OF THE LIFE 
OF GOD AND HIS SPIRIT IN UNIVERSAL HUMAN- 
ITY A RA TIONALL Y IMPOSSIBLE CONCEPTION. 

The phenomena of humanity demonstrate the exist- 
ence of three world forces, or spirits, moving in separ-? 
ate and clearly defined channels and maintaining through- 
out a fundamentally and irreconcilably antagonistic char- 
acter. The Evolution of Christianity asserts that all life, 
including the religious life, even the life of God in the 
soul of humanity, is subject to the evolutionary formula, 
which requires "continuous progressive change, accord- 
ing t£ certain divine laws and by means of resident for- 
ces." It is the object of this chapter to show that the 
phenomena of universal humanity cannot be brought into 
causal relation among themselves under the requirements 
of the evolutionary hypothesis. It will appear that this 
theory is an inexcusable misapprehension of the phenom- 
ena of history, because it requires that wholly unlike and 
irreconcilable phenomena shall be explained by the per- 
sonal presence of God and his spirit and life in all man- 
kind. 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 125 

By "world spirits" it is intended to say that each had 
in it the intention and desire to become universal, k 
is not meant to say whether they are forces originating 
in the world or not. That will be a matter for further 
definition as each is taken up for consideration. 

The last force to enter the arena of history will be con- 
sidered first. It is the life of the Christian church. It 
had a small beginning, in the life and teaching, death, res- 
urrection and ascension into heaven of one divine person, 
the Son of God who became also the Son of man. Fifty 
days after his death his disciples numbered but about 120 
souls. It is now nearly two thousand years since Christ 
was born and became a man, and his name represents 
the greatest force in human life. Yearly, millions are 
added to the number of his disciples, and the desire to 
extend his religion over all the earth is a resistless and 
sleepless force in their lives. What is it that causes all 
the phenomena of Christianity, its world wide benevo- 
lence, its missions, its schools, its appreciation of the 
value of human life, its recognition of the rights of man, 
its splendid civilization? 

We cannot follow the example of the Evolution of 
Christianity and give the answer in universal assump- 
tions. One clearly defined historical particular sets all 
resumptions to the contrary aside. That particular is 
presented in the phenomena of the life of Paul. From 
the day of his conversion he was conscious of but one 
controlling, personal obligation. Before stating it, let 
us remember that obligation implies the ability to dis- 
charge it ; i. e., the soul has in it the spontaneous energy 
that can originate the action or actions that fulfill an obli- 



126 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



gation. The soul is not intermixed and inextricably 
woven together with another person. It is conscious of 
its freedom. Its own will is not inseparable from the 
will of another, which could not be the case if it were 
"indistinguishably combined" with the other or if such 
a condition existed as the "divine human consciousness." 
Paul yielded freely and heartily when convinced. He 
was profoundly conscious of the radical — not "continu- 
ous" — change he made, when he turned from destroying 
the church to preaching "Christ and him crucified." 
"The love of Christ constrains us, for we thus judge that 
if one died for all then all were dead," he said. The mo- 
tives springing up in his heart from the contemplation 
of the personal relation of Christ to him took full con- 
trol of him. It was the normal, spontaneous response 
of his soul to the call of Christ to a world wide mission. 

Concerning the purpose of this mission he said : "Of 
whom (Christ) we received the apostleship (the office 
of an apostle) for the obedience of faith among all na- 
tions. Paul here affirms that he was made the apostle 
of Christ that he might be the minister of a universal 
type of life : — "the obedience of faith among all nations." 
And all the apostles were ministers of the same, though 
not all went to the Gentiles. 

Again, he affirms that this type of life is no new thing 
in the plans of the Creator. He says: "Now to him 
that is able to establish you according to my gospel and 
the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation 
of the mystery which hath been kept in silence through 
times eternal but now is manifested, and by the scrip- 
tures of the prophets, according, to the commandment 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 127 



of the eternal God, is made known unto all the nations, 
unto obedience of faith." It must strike the attention of 
every one with peculiar force to read about something 
that had been kept in silence through times eternal, a 
mystery which has been revealed, and by the command- 
ment of the eternal God is now made known. This rev- 
elation is external and the command to make it known 
is external and the persons to whom the commandment 
comes are few and external to all the rest of the world. 
It is in the preaching of Jesus Christ that this mystery is 
made known. God breaks the silence of the times eternal 
through the preaching of the gospel of his Son; and it is 
unto all nations for the obedience of faith. The language 
of the great commission, sending the apostles to all na- 
tions and into all the world, will be readily recalled. 
God's purpose to send his Son into the world and through 
him to make it possible for all nations to possess a life 
which is the obedience of faith is, or should be, a matter 
of supreme concern to every one. We cannot afford to 
wait for the "consummation of evolution." In another 
chapter we will ascertain the divine method of bring- 
ing this type of life to all men. 

The mission of the apostle Paul was further denned in 
these words : "And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom 
thou persecutest. But arise and stand upon thy feet; for 
to this end I have appeared unto thee to appoint thee a 
minister and a witness both of the things wherein thou 
hast seen me, and of the things wherein I will appear unto 
thee; delivering thee from the people and from the Gen- 
tiles unto whom I send thee, to open their eyes, that 
they may turn from darkness to light and from the power 



128 THE E VOL UTION THE OR Y 

of Satan to God, that they may receive remission of sins 
and an inheritance among them which are sanctified by 
faith in me." 

We now have four statements concerning the Chris- 
tian life; it is unto all nations — a universal type of life; 
it is the obedience of faith ; it is the obedience of faith in 
Christ; it is a life made holy by faith in Jesus. Paul's 
mission is to open the eyes of the Gentiles, then their 
responsibility begins. This is done for them, as already 
seen, by preaching the gospel. And the obligation then 
rests upon them to do four things : turn from darkness ; 
turn to light ; turn from the power of Satan ; turn to God. 
Then follow the benefits to be enjoyed : the remission 
of sins and an inheritance among those made holy by 
faith in Jesus. 

Notwithstanding, the Evolution of Christianity does not 
consider Paul much of a philosopher and charges him 
with despising wisdom; the above sketch of the life 
which he was sent to make universal will stand the test 
for soundness and philosophic depth against all the critics 
and evolutionists. Try a few points. Faith has the most 
important place among the endowments of the soul. We 
act according to our faith every hour and obey it in all 
the transactions of this life; in all cases requiring evi- 
dence, in every matter of history belonging to the past 
and in everything belonging to the future; and we will 
obey the faith we have, whether it is right or wrong, true 
or false. Satan knew where the keystone in the arch of 
life was. He removed it by inducing our first parents to 
believe his lie and the arch fell ; for man obeyed the lie 
then, and lost true spiritual life. 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 129 

But the mystery revealed and made known by the 
preaching of the gospel is God's purpose to restore that 
faith and rebuild the ruin made by the belief of that lie. 
As we have seen in Chapter III, the longer and more 
earnestly the Gentiles believed in their false gods, the 
more hopeless and helpless their condition became. God 
in his great mercy comes to their relief in the ministry 
of Paul. And his mission is briefly stated "to open their 
eyes/' We easily get the meaning of this metaphor by 
reading, his speech in the court of Mars at Athens. They 
needed instruction; he taught them concerning the true 
God ; the Creator and Lord of heaven and earth does not 
live in temples made by man, nor is he worshiped by 
works of art, as though such things could minister to 
his wants; for he is the source of life and breath and all 
things; he made all nations of one blood and his watch- 
care is over all to do them good, that they might seek 
after him and find him, for he has not been far away. We 
are his children by creation and ought not to degrade 
our divine Father to the likeness of gold or silver or stone 
wrought by our finite human skill. This is all wrong and 
has been all this time, and God has borne with it, but now 
he requires repentance; for he has set a time for judgment 
by one whom he has selected ; and righteousness shall be 
his standard in deciding the rewards due to all the world. 
Of this he has given full assurance to all men in the fact 
that he raised the Man, who shall sit as judge, from the 
dead. It is easy to see that Paul placed God before the 
benighted minds of his idolatrous hearers as the most 
important fact in the universe. He is an external fact, 
and as Lord of heaven and earth executes his will and 



130 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

exhibits his merciful providence in the external phenomena 
of nature over all nations. He is not a concealed God 
"within his creation as the spirit dwells in the body;" 
which seems to have been the heathen thought when they 
built the temples of the gods and goddesses and carved 
their images. Paul tells them, the God, who made hea- 
ven and earth and all that is therein, does not need a 
material habitation such as their finite hands could make. 
The God who creates is greater than his creation and 
existed before it. (Then why place his life, his personal 
presence and power within, in the soul of his creature and 
even in nature?) The Evolution of Christianity lays the 
foundation for the restoration of the heathen conception of 
an animated material universe, and, as a consequence, for 
the restoration of idolatry. It is easy to see, also, how 
far the conception given Moses in the first commandment 
is removed from the fundamental assumption on which 
the Evolution of Christianity is based : "Thou shalt not 
make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any- 
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth be- 
neath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt 
not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them." But if 
God is in nature, in his works, as the spirit is in the body 
of a man— why not? A famous agnostic says if he 
had been God when the people worshiped stones and 
stars, instead of killing them he would have said, they 
mean me. The truth is they worship the idol. The 
Evolution of Christianity does not believe that God com- 
manded the children of Israel to destroy the idolatrous 
races that had taken possession of their inheritance. Why 
should not Jehovah be jealous when idolatry kills the 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 131 

soul ? Why should he not defend the heart and thoughts 
of his people against a sin which had killed the rest 
of the world. The Evolution of Christianity expects 
its conception of God to be believed and to enter into 
the minds of men to exert its influence over their lives. 

The conception of God in the old Covenant is identical 
with that in the New. Moses and Christ and Paul think 
of God as wholly separate from his material creation, 
that he is not dependent upon it for his existence nor for a 
habitation. Moses said : "Ascribe ye greatness unto our 
God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect; for all his 
ways are judgment ; a God of truth and without iniquity ; 
just and right is he. Do ye thus requite the Lord, O 
foolish people and unwise? Is not he thy father that 
hath bought thee? Hath he not made thee and estab- 
lished thee?" The Psalmist said: "Whom have I in 
heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I 
desire beside thee." Christ taught his disciples to pray: 
"Our Father which art in heaven." The subjective, evo- 
lutionary conception of God is not in the Bible. Instead 
of the personal presence of God in the soul revealing 
in consciousness what he wrote in it when he made it, 
we find the reverse in the Bible. What exultation we 
feel as we read: "Lord thou hast been our dwelling 
place in all generations. Before the mountains were 
brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and 
the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art 
God." 

It is not necessary to multiply quotations further to 
make it clear what the conception of God is, on which 
Christianity rests. As a wise master-builder Paul laid 



132 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



the foundation. He did not consult the philosophers but 
said: "Other foundation can no man lay than that is 
laid, which is Jesus Christ." Now the relation between 
these two persons is important before we proceed with 
the study of Paul's mission. Jesus died on the cross 
condemned by his own nation because he claimed to be 
the Son of God. In the highest court of his nation when 
placed under oath by the high priest, he admitted that 
he was the Son of God. On one occasion he asked his 
disciples: "Whom say ye that I am." Peter answered: 
"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." As it 
was with the conception of God, so the Evolution of Chris- 
tianity assumes an un-Christian conception for Christ: 
"He concentrates the diffused spirit of God in a single 
human life ; he is the indwelling of God in a unique man 
(shame!). And it further affirms that it has no defini- 
tion of Christ's relations to the infinite and eternal." 
This lack of a definition reduces faith in Christ to the 
same quality and efficacy as faith in any other man. 
Why does not the Evolution of Christianity accept the 
definition Christ himself gave of his relation to God? 
And when it is recalled that he made the admission in 
the immediate prospect of certain death under the awful 
obligations imposed by the oath administered by the high 
priest in the presence of the Sanhedrim : "I adjure thee 
by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be the 
Christ, the Son of God" — when we recall his admission 
under these circumstances, I say, what further need have 
we of definition. Every one knows what it has cost the 
church to force other definitions upon it. 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 133 

This is sufficient to make it clear that the relation of 
Christ to God is defined by the highest authority, by his 
oath ; also, that he must have been conscious of this rela- 
tion when he came into the world. He said : "And 
now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with 
the glory which I had with thee before the world was;" 
and, in another place: "God so loved the world that 
he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth 
in him should not perish but have everlasting life." The 
conception of God as Father and Christ as his Son, as a 
conception intended to influence the lives of men, stands 
infinitely above any other human conception. They stand 
together in the plans of creation and in the purpose of 
redemption. The Son is nearest the heart of the Father 
and higher in rank and authority than the arch-angel. 
He is a suitable person, then, both to represent the Father 
among men and to be the only. Being on earth in whom 
mankind could have a perfect faith. 

One more step completes the conception of the personal 
influence that enters into the life of the Christian. Christ 
died, was buried, rose ag^in from the dead and ascended 
to the Father. It was necessary on one hand that the 
world should have a witness that Christ was living and 
had been exalted to the highest place of power, to reign 
until he shall subdue all enemies, even death itself ; on the 
other, the believers in him needed the presence of some 
One with them, whom they could regard as his repre- 
sentative and a guarantee that his mission to the world 
will be accomplished. The Holy Spirit came to the wait- 
ing believers on the day of Pentecost, according to the 
promise of the Master, and proclaimed his first message to 



134 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

the world by the mouth of Peter, to whom had been given 
the keys of the kingdom of heaven. This day, next to 
resurrection day, is the most important that has dawned 
upon our planet since the first creation was finished. The 
new creation of the race was inaugurated on this day un- 
der the most imposing ceremonies ever witnessed. God 
gave the Holy Spirit to his Son and the Son sent him to 
his bereaved and waiting followers to join his testimony 
with theirs; "that all the house of Israel might know as- 
suredly that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye 
have crucified, both Lord and Christ." About three 
thousand believed their testimony, and thus the little 
company of about 120 believers began the conquest of the 
world. 

The conception of the Three Persons, who, because ot 
the obedience of faith in Christ, enter into fellowship 
with the believer, fills the entire range of the soul's needs. 
Christ, as the Son of God, is a surety to the believing 
heart of the favor of God the Father, of adoption as a 
child and of heirship with the Son. Faith in him assures 
of a resurrection from the dead, and a life of immortality, 
where he is, in the glory he had with the Father before 
the world was. Only the obedience of faith in Christ 
has the promise of the Holy Spirit. And when Christ 
announced to his disciples : "All power is given unto me 
in heaven and in earth," he said: "Go, ye, therefore, 
and teach all nations, baptizing them into the name of the 
Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Teaching 
them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you. And lo, I am with you always even unto the end 
of the world." So that by faith in Christ and obedience 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 135 

to him, these three names represent the source of the 
new spiritual life that filled the church on the day of Pen- 
tecost. In the name of Christ the believer has access 
to God in worship, prayer and praise; and whatsoever he 
does, he is taught to do all in the name of Christ. The 
obedience of faith is intensely practical and conforms the 
phenomena of Christian life to a standard that is perfect, 
divine, and unmixed with "the turbid, impure stream" 
of the life of this world. 

Now can we bring- the phenomena of Paul's life into 
causal relation under this conception? If so, then we 
have accounted for all the phenomena of Christian life; 
for the cause of it is the same and the phenomena agree 
among themselves. 

When he was in danger of immediate death at the 
hands of a furious mob of his own countrymen, he ex- 
plained the great change that had come over him ; for he 
was well known in Jerusalem, and appealed to the high- 
priest and all the estate of the elders as witnesses of his 
former devotion to the strict traditions of the fathers, 
"being zealous for God as you all are this day; and per- 
secuted his Way unto the death, binding and delivering 
into prisons both men and women." Thus he accounts 
for the phenomena of his own life as a persecutor and at 
the same time for the phenomena of the life of his coun- 
trymen. 

Now what changed Paul's life so radically and so sud- 
denly? It is not a "continuous progressive change." He 
says of the event, "Immediately I conferred not with flesh 
and blood;" and Luke writes, "And straightway in the 
synagogues he proclaimed Jesus that he is the Son of 



136 THE E VOL UTION THEOR Y 

God." The answer is he believed in Jesus whom he was 
persecuting. The evidence which produced faith in him 
was presented to his senses, and through them to his un- 
derstanding: the blinding glory above the brightness of 
the sun and the voice that called him by name. He says 
nothing about "the personal presence of God within, in 
his soul revealing in his consciousness what he wrote in 
his soul when he made it." And yet the Evolution of 
Christianity requires us to believe that "all life, even the 
religious life, is subject to the law of continuous progres- 
sive change, according to certain divine laws and by means 
of resident forces." Paul's consciousness of the cause of 
the momentous phenomenon of his conversion is evidence 
we are bound to accept on the question concerning what 
caused the change in his life. First and chiefly, be- 
cause he tells the cause of it himself; and secondly, be- 
cause Luke, who records the account twice, is an unques- 
tioned authority on the events of those times, and es- 
pecially as far as they concern Paul, having been the 
apostle's traveling companion. The "resident forces" in 
Paul's life before his conversion would have continued 
his efforts to destroy the church. The prompt obedience 
of his faith sets aside the # theory of evolution, for the 
reason that it does not assign the required cause of his 
conduct, for it evidently was not "resident" but was 
external. This must suffice concerning Paul's new life 
and the new relation he sustains to the Father, the Son 
and the Holy Spirit. 

The terms of his commission sending him to the 
Gentiles will be more readily comprehended since we know 
the cause of his own conversion and new life. We have 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 137 



already learned that he was sent to open their eyes; and 
that he began with the true conception of God. He is 
told that this is to be done "that they may turn from 
darkness to light." But if "the life of God is in the soul 
of humanity," and subject to "continuous progressive 
change," who will give a rational definition of the word 
"turn?" Who will reconcile the conception of "turning 
from darkness" with the evolutionary assumption that 
"man and God are in very essence one?" How can one 
in darkness turn to the light while "revelation is unveiling 
in consciousness what God wrote in the soul when he 
made it?" Ignorance is darkness; disbelief of God's 
truth and belief of the lie caused the ignorance; and the 
"ignorance separated from the life of God." These 
phenomena stand in causal relation among themselves. 
Turning the open eyes to the light is the only remedy for 
ignorance. 

But the next step is a parallel : Turn from Satan to 
God. Here we find the personal cause of the darkness. 
The Evolution of Christianity does not think the "story 
of Eden, with its talking serpent and tree of the knowl- 
edge of evil," is historical ; it is a tradition, myth or 
legend — inspired, however, because written by a "divinely 
inspired prophet." Did Christ in giving instruction to 
his chosen apostle to the Gentiles have a false conception 
of the personal cause of the darkness which had separ- 
ated them from the life of God? Considered as a ques- 
tion in mental philosophy is it not true that separation 
from cultured and pure associations and living in sym- 
pathy with the opposite, a man soon falls below his former 
level and assimilates all the vices of the new. The worst 



lit 



138 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



men in the history of our country and of any country are 
its traitors. The worst being in the universe is the 
chief conspirator against God. Paul's mission, first of all, 
proposes to open the eyes of the Gentiles that they may 
see their leader, the adversary of both God and man, and 
turn from following after him. For this part of Paul's 
instructions the Evolution of Christianity has no use. The 
story of Satan in Eden is an inspired lie, and hence there 
is no personal cause of moral evil; and, therefore, also, 
no such thing as the falling away of Adam from the 
spiritual, moral and intellectual position in which he orig- 
inally stood by virtue of his creation in the image of God. 
On the contrary, it seems that Adam was the greatest 
man that had lived before the Son of God became a man 
and, as the Author of the new life by faith in him, is called 
the Second Adam. He is the seed of the woman of 
whom it was said he should bruise the serpent's head 
before Adam went forth from Eden, showing that God 
was not taken by surprise, and planned victory for his 
creatures in the presence of defeat ; and laid the foundation 
for that hope that has sustained his people in all ages. 

The Evolution of Christianity seems to forget the cov- 
enant with Abraham, and the Messiah promised by the 
prophets ; it seems to forget that he was in fact the Seed 
of the woman, for God literally fulfilled his promise 
made in the garden ; he was the "Seed" of the covenant 
made with Abraham and the heir of David's throne, both 
by natural descent and by the oath of Jehovah. God's 
plans are made known to us in external written documents 
informing us of his promises, covenants and sol- 
emn oaths, binding the garden of Eden in one 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 139 

purpose to the birth of the Son of Mary and 
the Son of God. And of his advent into the world it is 
said : "To this end was the Son of God manifested that 
he might destroy the works of the devil." The tempta- 
tion in the wilderness assumes the same weakness in the 
Seed of the woman that the tempter found in his mother 
in Eden, but the divine hero was not deceived by the prop- 
osition to mix the spiritual and material, to surrender the 
divine to the gratification of the human; and, after re- 
sisting the three cunningly devised assaults, he turned up- 
on his adversary, saying: "Get thee hence, Satan; for 
it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him 
only shalt thou serve." Is this person whom Jesus here 
addresses as a dog, saying "begone!" — is he a myth? 
Then what shall we say of "God" in the expression: 
turn from Satan, a myth, to God. Does not God become 
a myth, too ? Did Christ utter a falsehood in both these 
instances which stand fundamentally related to three of 
the most important matters in human history? The first 
is the question concerning the author of moral and spirit- 
ual evil and its consequences; the second is the question 
concerning the ability of Christ to withstand Satan as a 
personal adversary; and the third is the question con- 
cerning his power to deliver those who are in the service 
of Satan. The argument concerning the personality of 
Satan rests, primarily, on the truthfulness of Christ. 
This is not the place to exhibit this argument in full. 
These two declarations are enough for the unprejudiced 
mind. "Turn from Satan to God" can mean nothing 
else to a fair, open mind than turn from the one person 
to the other. And the inference is easy and necessary 



140 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

that at the same time the Gentiles had turned from God to 
Satan. Thus, Eden, with its serpent, and the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil, and the tree of life, and the 
sinning progenitors of the race, with the voice of the Lord 
God walking in the garden giving the promise of victory, 
takes its place in history. If Satan is a myth, if Eden is 
a myth, then the phenomena of evil, "the works of the 
devil," have no explanation. That God should cause the 
moral and spiritual ruin of his creatures and then at such 
an expenditure of love and patience make provision at the 
cost of the sufferings and death of his Son for them to 
turn to him again would make God guilty of folly. God 
made man greater than we can now understand. Satan, 
therefore, sought him as a partner in evil. 

Sin is the rebellious attitude of a free spirit towards 
God. The soul of man is free and can originate motion. 
That motion may be to obey God or to disobey him. 
Satan secured a movement in obedience to himeslf by 
appealing to the same desires through which he has since 
ruled the greater portion of the race. The freedom and 
spontaneity with which man is endowed made the story 
of Eden possible. Sin is not something to be created ; it 
only needs to be acted ; and man is capable of originating 
sin. James says : "Let no man say when he is tempted, 
I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with 
evil, and he himself tempteth no man; but each man is 
tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust, and 
enticed. Then the lust, when it hath conceived, beareth 
sin; and the sin, when it is full grown, bringeth forth 
death." These are the phenomena of moral and spiritual 
evil. John comprehends them under a similar generaliza- 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 141 

tion : "If any man love the world, the love of the Father 
is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust 
of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vainglory of 
life, is not of the Father." Paul's generalizations, of " the 
carnal mind" and "the works of the flesh," and recitation 
of the particulars under them, taken in connection with 
the Scriptures just read, teach us the following things: 
God is not the author of sin; nor does he tempt man to 
sin; man is tempted "when he is drawn away by his own 
lust and enticed;" he sins when he disobeys God for the 
sake of "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the 
vainglory of life;" the man, who sins in loving the w r orld 
in this sense, "has not the love of God in him;" and "they 
which practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom 
of God." And by comparing these Scriptures and much 
more that might be cited, with the mental states excited 
by Satan in the mind of Eve, and those he tried to excite 
in the mind of Christ, we find that the phenomena of 
temptation and sin agree from Eden till now. There is 
a repetition of the first sin in the life of every sinner. 
The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the vainglory 
of life include all the particular sins. Christ resisted 
Satan successfully in all of these; but Eve failed. She 
first believed the Serpent's representation that they would 
not die and would become wise like gods, and then "she 
saw that the tree was good for food," — "the lust of the 
flesh " ; " and that it was pleasant to the eyes,"—" the lust 
of the eyes" ; "and a tree to be desired to make one wise" 
(as gods), — "the vainglory of life." The phenomena of 
the life of humanity is continuous in temptation and sin ; 
but, that "history is but a record of the process of the 



142 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



evolution of the divinity out of humanity," as the Evolu- 
tion of Christianity affirms, is contradicted by Scripture 
and history, observation and experience. The only way 
of escape from Satan is to turn from him and cease to 
yield to temptation. The Centaur and Laocoon are re- 
vived myths to help out evolution. 

But Paul's mission to the Gentiles required more than 
opening their eyes that they might turn from Satan, — 
they were also to turn to God. The original relation to 
the Creator is thus regained. The Evolution of Chris- 
tianity thinks this a very unreasonable conception, i. e., 
that man should be restored to a position from which 
he has fallen. It teaches that "each stage in evolution 
is a step into a new life never before possessed," but says 
"the old theology teaches that the end of all spiritual 
progress is a return to a life once possessed, but now lost." 
But we have just read that "they who practice such things 
(the works of the flesh) cannot inherit the kingdom of 
God." There must be a turning then. Satan will oth- 
erwise hold his followers. And the Evolution of Chris- 
tianity cheers their future with the promise that "in the 
consummation of evolution, universal humanity will be 
wearing the image of Christ." But Christ said : "Ex- 
cept ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no 
wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." 

"The life of God within, in the soul," and "man and 
God in very essence one," are conceptions that exclude 
some of the most significant declarations of our Christian 
Scriptures; such as relate to the new birth, "the adoption 
as children of God," "the carnal mind being enmity 
against God," "being transformed by the renewing of the 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 143 

mind," and others. The Evolution of Christianity has 
some ground for finding fault with unscriptural views of 
conversion, but should remember that a false theory con- 
cerning it does not rid of the fact — it is still in the New 
Testament. But how will a man be born again if he 
already has the life of God in his soul and if all life is 
subject to the law of "continuous progressive change/' 
The New Testament was written nearly two thousand 
years too soon to have the benefit of the evolutionary hy- 
pothesis. Nevertheless, Christ said: "Except a man 
be born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of heav- 
en," and explaining it further he said : "Except a man 
be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the 
kingdom of God." These scriptures show that turning to 
God brings to him a new born child, the enmity in his 
heart is gone, and the spirit of his mind is renewed, and 
he is prepared for adoption, and can cry Father ! Father ! 
It is not the consciousness of the divinity in the sinner 
nor of his eternal destiny that accounts for his turning. 
The conception of "opening the eyes" of the Gentiles is 
again stated by Paul when addressing them after their 
turning in these words : "Though ye should have ten 
thousand tutors in Christ, yet have ye not many fathers; 
for in Jesus Christ I begat you through the gospel." The 
gospel which Paul preached was, therefore, "the power of 
God unto salvation to every one who believed," and is 
the cause, as the instrument of the Holy Spirit, of the new 
life in the soul of the sinner. So that, since the obedience 
of faith in Jesus is a universal type of life ; since preaching 
the gospel was a universal mission laid upon the apostles ; 
since the gospel is the instrument by which the Holy Spirit 



144 THE E VOL UTION THE OR Y 

begets new life in the soul ; since those thus begotten are 
born again out of water and out of Spirit in obedience 
to Christ; and finally since all men may become the "sons 
of God through faith in Jesus Christ," it follows that all 
the phenomena of "turning from Satan to God" are 
brought into causal connection among themselves by the 
commandment of the eternal God, that the mystery, kept 
in silence through times eternal, but now revealed, should 
be made known to all nations for the obedience of faith." 
The evolutionary hypothesis is as foreign to this concep- 
tion of Christian life as Satan's lie in Eden was contradic- 
tory of the commandment of Jehovah ; and its subsidiary 
assumption that the life of God is indistinguishably and 
inseparably united with the soul, that man and God are in 
very essence one, is a more radical assertion than : "Ye 
shall not surely die. For God doth know that in the day 
ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be 
as gods knowing good and evil." 

The Evolution of Christianity, however, separates the 
book of Genesis into its "component parts/' finds the story 
of Eden poetic and imaginative, and that, in one of the 
narratives (why follow this one and not the other?) con- 
tained in the first chapter, there was nowhere, directly or 
indirectly, any reference to an Eden or a Fall, and as- 
sures us that "Paul never treats the Fall as a fundamental 
and essential fact." Let the reader judge. Paul says 
directly to the converts from the Gentiles : "I fear, lest 
by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, 
your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and 
purity that is toward Christ." Paul does directly give the 
story of Eden the benefit of his apostolic testimony, that 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 145 

the story is true; and that it is "fundamental and essential" 
in this, that Eve was beguiled and her mind was corrupted 
from the simplicity and purity that is towards God; just 
as the same serpent was then already corrupting the 
mind of believers from the simplicity and purity that is 
towards Christ, — just as he has done ever since, and, 
especially now, is making the most overwhelming effort 
to capture the intellect and learning of the church. Thq 
logic of Paul's mission, the philosophy of its purpose, its 
place in God's plans with the world — to save the lost — if 
there were no positive declarations to guide us, clearly 
assume a falling away from God to Satan. The Fall is, 
therefore, a "fundamental and essential" fact if we at- 
tempt to bring the phenomena of evil into causal connec- 
tion among themselves, and especially if we attempt to 
comprehend the profound philosophy of Paul's mission. 

But it was Jesus who told the story of the prodigal son, 
the opening of his eyes in the far country, his return to 
his father, the embrace of welcome, the paternal love in 
the feast, the robe and the ring. And Paul's mission has 
the real original prodigal to deal with. He must bring 
him to see by flooding his soul with light, Jesus is the 
light of the world; and Jesus was all Paul knew when 
he preached. In the name of Christ, the elder Son, he 
had a welcome for the returning Gentiles: "The for- 
gtveness of sins, and an inheritance among those made 
holy by faith in Jesus." 

Sin, however, like the smeil of the swine upon the gar- 
ments of ^he prodigal, must be removed and the sinner 
washed, and clean robes put on him. He must "cleanse 
himself from the defilement of the flesh and spirit." He 



146 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

needs the "bath of regeneration,'' "the body washed in 
pure water." It is not an arbitrary command that the 
believing, penitent sinner was required to be baptized. 

The Evolution of Christianity claims that "revelation is 
a psychological process — that it is God's personal presence 
and power in the soul revealing in consciousness what 
God wrote in the soul when he made it." Such a con- 
ception makes no provision for a spontaneous movement 
of the sinner towards God. There is no appropriate cere- 
mony in which the Father and his child can meet. God 
is an impersonal force, an intangible dream without pos- 
itive engagements or covenants with men. The Evolu- 
tion of Christianity asserts that "Jesus Christ was the 
founder neither of religion nor of a religion." And ex- 
plains what a religion is, in the following style : "It is 
a particular form of moral and spiritual organization, 
resulting from some specialized perception of that mani- 
festation of God to man which is as universal as the race. 
A religion as distinguished from religion is a particular 
and organized type of the life of God in the soul of man." 
There is, then, a universal manifestation of God which is 
religion; a religion is some specialized perception of 
universal religion, organized in some particular form. 
(That is a good guess at the meaning, anyhow.) And 
now we are not surprised to read : Jesus Christ formu- 
lated no creed, no liturgy, and with reference to baptism 
and the supper, "in neither case did he create or institute 
a ceremonial." "Baptism was a form of initiation into 
a universal and divine fellowship." What did Christ 
mean then when he said: "Go ye, therefore, and make 
disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 147 

of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ?" Is 
it not a "ceremonial" to baptize all nations when they are 
made disciples? And is it not more than "initiation into 
a universal and divine fellowship," when by the authority 
of Jesus, who was clothed with all power in heaven and 
in earth, those becoming his disciples were baptized into 
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy 
Spirit. Here is, — not a universal, impersonal abstraction, 
but new and holy personal relationships. This stands 
in causal relation to the phenomena of turning to God; 
?nd the solemn ceremony administered in the name of 
Christ is the divine assurance that the returning prodigal 
here meets the three persons into whose names he enters. 
Of what value would the names be without the Persons 
they represent? It means something to come into these 
three names. The voluntary movement of the soul away 
from Satan to God assumes the reality and the magnitude 
of the war that Satan is waging against the moral and 
spiritual order of the universe. The honor of Jehovah 
and the good of his creation must be maintained ; and, to 
do this, Satan must be overthrown. The fight is car^ 
ried on with spiritual weapons, not with carnal. "Jesus 
is the Captain of our salvation." The moral and spirit- 
ual resources of the universe are devoted to the mainten- 
ance of the conflict. The love and faithfulness of God; 
the blood of his Son on the battlefield; his dying prayer 
for his murderers; his victory over death; the holiness, 
righteousness, truth and benevolence of the armies of 
heaven and earth; the complete victory of their divine 
leader, who fought the combined forces of evil alone, 
when he could have called ten legions of angels to his 



148 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

side; the certainty that his victorious followers shall wear 
crowns of immortality and eternal life; and share with 
their glorious commander "an inheritance, incorruptible 
and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in 
heaven for those who by the power of God are guarded 
through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the 
Jast time" — all these considerations and motives and 
many more are the moral and spiritual forces which enter 
into the new life of every one who turns from Satan to 
God. The solemn ceremony administered in the name 
oi Christ brings the returning prodigal into such personal 
relation to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit that 
he feels assured of acceptance and of all the privileges 
and benefits of being a child of God. It brings him into 
the names of the only three persons in the universe known 
to us who are administering the moral order of heaven 
and earth and leading the conflict against the forces of 
evil. "Into the name" of a person signifies infinitely 
more than "into a universal fellowship." The bride 
comes, by a solemn ceremony, into the name of the 
bridegroom — and he is to love, cherish and protect her. 
Paul says to the Corinthians: "I espoused you to one 
husband that I might present you as a pure virgin to 
Christ." To be assured that the Father, the Son and the 
Holy Spirit acknowledge us as theirs, love and defend us 
as theirs, forgive and help our infirmities because we 
must "grow in grace and in the knowledge of the truth," 
such an assurance resting upon the authority of Christ 
is prompted by the very love that would save us. 

How meaningless, how far removed from the over- 
fi\ wing love of Christ are such utterances as these, and 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 149 

many others we find in the Evolution of Christianity : 
"He( Christ) assumed that there was a provision by which 
the burdened soul might find peace, and that all that 
was necessary for that purpose was to abandon sin and 
enter upon a new life. He organized no society, for- 
mulated no constitution, appointed no officers, prescribed 
no rules. He left the life to create its own ecclesiastical 
organization, as he left it to find its own intellectual and 
emotional expression." If anything more indifferent 
can be attributed to Christ than to assert that "he as- 
sumed that there was a provision by which the burdened 
soul might find peace," I fail to think of it. There are 
many beautiful things said about the love of Christ and 
the love of God, but we are usually left in the mysticism 
of such expressions as : "Redemption is within, not with- 
out." "Your sins are a cloud in the heavens; like the 
shining of the sun on the cloud is the shining of the life 
of God on the heart, and he will shine on till he has 
blotted out every sin." The evolutionary theory and its 
subsidiary assumptions compel this mysticism, and rob 
Christ of the personal power of his wonderful, unearthly 
love, to which he gave external objective expression in 
so many ways. 

But his tears are not permitted to move the sinner's 
heart; the tender pathos of his entreaty, "Come unto me, 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give 
you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; 
for I am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall find rest 
to your souls" — this inimitable outgoing of the heart 
of Christ is not permitted to specify the act in which the 
burdened soul may come and find rest, and take upon it 



150 THE E VOL UTION THEOR Y 

the yoke of Christ and then continue to learn of him. 
The whole matter is converted into the utterly imper- 
sonal vagueness of a cloud with the sun shining on it, so 
the life of God, not God, shines on the heart. As a 
L'terary fancy, such a statement may attract some minds, 
but what thoughtful mind is willing to risk its peace 
on a human fancy. Christ made specific provision for 
the consummation of this outgoing of his great love and 
the actual coming of the sinner, when he sent his apostles 
to all nations with the invitation to come. So that "the 
Spirit and the bride say, Come. And he that heareth, let 
him say, Come. And he that is athirst, let him come; 
he that will, let him take of the water of life freely." 
Ihe commission given to the apostles and through them 
to the church is plainly a particular application of this 
invitation. All nations are to be made disciples, i. e., 
learners; and they are to be taught all that Christ had 
taught these apostles; they become disciples by submit- 
ting to his authority in baptism, i. e., they take upon them 
bis yoke. The Holy Spirit said through Peter, "on the 
day of Pentecost, to the burdened souls who cried out 
— What shall we do? — "repent ye and be baptized every 
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission 
of your sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Spirit." In all this provision is made for peace and rest, 
on the authority of him who promised it and longed to 
bestow it. It is not true, therefore, that "Christ created 
no ceremonial and assumed that there was a provision 
made whereby the burdened soul might find peace." 

But we are told that "Christ appointed no officers." 
Paul does not agree with this affirmation, at least so far 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 151 

as the apostolic office is concerned. He says: "Of 
whom (Christ) we received grace and apostleship." 
This office included all the rest, so that for awhile the 
apostles served the congregation both as deacons and 
elders or pastors; there was then a division of labor in 
the congregation and the evangelists were set apart by the 
congregations for aggressive work and the care of im- 
perfect organizations. Paul was "appointed to know the 
will of God, to see the righteous One, to hear a voice out 
of his mouth and to be a witness for him unto all men 
of what he had seen and heard.' ' This is certainly a 
very clearly defined work, which is the essential thing 
in an office, and the appointee must be an officer. But 
the theory of evolution drives away all officers, because 
"the life is left to create its own ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion." 

Again the Evolution of Christianity is quite certain 
that "Christ organized no society, no institutions of 
religion." Notwithstanding he said : "Where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in 
the midst of them." A gathering of souls in the name 
of Christ constitutes a Christian society, however small. 
The important thing is not the numbers, but the gathering 
together subject to the authority of Christ. And that 
this small gathering was spoken of by him as a church 
cannot be successfully disputed when the context in 
which it stands is considered, for he was speaking of the 
church and its duties and privileges. We have just seen 
the significance of baptism in the name of Christ. All 
such persons would properly appear in this gathering even 
if there be but two. But it will not always do, indeed 



152 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

it will very seldom do, we fear, to reason that if Christ 
is in the smallest congregation, therefore he is much 
more certain to be in the largest. Let the large con- 
gregations beware lest they come together, but not in the 
name of Christ. But this conception of the church must 
be abandoned if "the life creates its own ecclesiastical 
organization" — Christ has nothing to say or do about 
it. 

But now, if Christ appointed no officers; instituted no 
ceremonial ; assumed the existence of a provision by 
which the burdened soul would find rest; and organized 
no society nor institutions of religion, we are not surprised 
to hear the author of these sentiments say : "Christ 
formulated no constitution." Why should he? There 
is nothing to constitute, there is nothing to build up, 
and he has no agents if there were. - 

The word edify means to build, and occurs many times 
in the Scriptures. Paul said to those who had turned 
from Satan to God : "We by doing the truth in love 
may grow up in all things, into him which is the head, 
even Christ; from whom all the body fitly formed and 
knit together through that which every joint supplieth; 
according to the working in due measure of each several 
part, maketh the increase of the body with the building 
up of itself in love." In Paul's time, already, the church 
was familiarly known as the body of Christ, while he was 
its divine head. Every individual member is "framed," 
"knit" into that body and according to his working ca- 
pacity contributes to its increase and building up in 
love. Here love is evidently the constructive, building or 
constitutional principle. Christ made it fundamental 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 153 

for the society of his disciples. "This," he said, "is my 
commandment, that ye love one another, even as I have 
loved you." By the declaration of Christ himself, then, 
"love one another even as I have loved you" is the fun- 
damental law of the church and was recognized as such 
by the apostles. Paul teaches that whatever else a man 
may have or do if he has not love he is as worthless 
as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbali — he is nothing. 
By this force in the souls of men they are bound together 
as members of the same body and united in a common 
head. It needs no "formulation." It is broad enough 
and deep enough and yet simple enough to meet the 
spiritual wants of the church in all ages and in all climes. 
Christ is the only ruler who ever proposed this law as 
the constitution of a universal empire; he is the only 
King who was wise enough to ordain for his subjects a 
law that will forever increase their happiness and at the 
same time make his throne more and more secure. The 
Evolution of Christianity is forced away from this con- 
ception of the church by its own fundamental assumption 
that all life is subject to the evolutionary hypothesis of 
"continuous progressive change according to certain laws 
and by means of resident forces." What ground is there 
in such a conception for the enthusiasm, devotion and 
sacrifices of love, and the heroism and triumphs of faith? 
Evolution must, logically, and does, abandon the objective 
conception of the believing, hoping and loving church as 
the visible instrument through which the great Captain 
will triumph over evil and its malicious author. Christ 
and his believing, obedient followers are united in wag- 



n 



154 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

ing this conflict — they are one in purpose, but not "in 
very essence." 

But, again, we are told that "Christ prescribed no 
rules." Of course he could not do that according to the 
subsidiary assumption that "revelation is not a book 
external to men, giving laws which are external to men, 
by a God who is external to men. Revelation is the un- 
veiling in human consciousness of that which God wrote 
in the human soul when he made it." That means, of 
course, that every man carries his rules in his own con- 
sciousness. But suppose some one should be curious 
enough to ask how the Evolution of Christianity got 
possession of this revelation. How does it know that 
God ever wrote anything in the human soul? We have 
just made a fairly thorough search for "x" in the souls 
of the heathen nations and found nothing but the record 
made in Genesis aga.ns: the .vite III .vian?.: "And God 
saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth 
and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart 
was only evil continually." 

This external relation of God to man is sustained by 
the consciousness of every man who contemplates his own 
personal responsibility and recognizes his freedom and 
capacity for spontaneous action. He knows, too, that 
when he sins he violates the will of another or his rela- 
te n to another. On the supposition that but one being 
exists in all the universe, it is inconceivable that he would 
need any rules or that he could sin; but as soon as an- 
other appears there is need of rules of conduct. 

Christ did give rules of conduct, and in consequence 
of having all power in heaven and in earth given into 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 155 

his hands he said to the men whom he sent to make 
disciples of all nations by baptizing them into the name 
of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, that 
they must also teach them to observe all things whatso- 
ever I commanded you. This provision continues the 
life of the society of his disciples and the rules by which 
it was governed on down into the life of the church. By 
what authoiity has this provision heeii ;.ct < side? Who did 
away with what Christ commanded his apostles ? When 
were the rules of conduct among members of the church 
as recorded in the eighteenth chapter of Matthew sus- 
pended, amended or stricken from the record? Who 
has abrogated the Sermon on the Mount? Can a power 
that is less than "all power in heaven and in earth'' do 
away with these rules given to the disciples "who came 
to him when he had sat down and he opened his mouth 
and taught them"? Everyone knows, when he reads 
these rules for the conduct of the members of the organi- 
zation of his disciples while he was with them and for 
the members of his church after his ascension, that he 
laid down rules of conduct that will correct evils which 
are in the hearts and lives of men today, just as they were 
when Christ taught them ; and he knows, too, that it is only 
as men observe these external precepts given by the per- 
sonal, historic, risen and living Christ, that they become 
better. The race can become better in no other way ; and 
this would hold good even if all the assumptions of the 
Evolution of Christianity were true. 

Someone may desire to know, after all this, how the 
Evolution of Christianity disposes of the "all things 
whatsoever I have commanded you." Here it is : "Even 



156 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

inspired teaching, and all the forms in which it may utter 
itself, and all the articulated knowledge of which it is the 
expression, are evanescent. These are phenomena, and 
phenomena always are and always must be transitory." 
The reader may feel that such a sweeping declaration 
needs no answer ; but it is a satisfaction to read from the 
inspired penman : "Every one, therefore, which heareth 
these words of mine and doeth them, shall be likened to 
a wise man which built his house upon the rock ; and the 
rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew 
and beat upon that house and it fell not." He writes that 
Christ also said : "Heaven and earth shall pass away, 
but my words shall not pass away." 

Again the Evolution of Christianity would like to 
have us believe that "Jesus Christ formulated no creed," 
but "left his disciples to express that life which he had 
imparted to them and left them to carry to others in 
language of their own." Now it will not be disputed 
that the strongest element in the life of the soul is its 
faith and that that faith can be no stronger than the object 
in which it rests. Christ came into the world to give 
life, but he was careful to teach that it was eternal life, 
and that whoever believes in him has eternal life, but 
he that does not believe in him shall not see life. So 
that Christ did give the world a creed. Why does the 
Evolution of Christianity say that Christ told his disciples 
to carry unto others the new life which they had received 
from him? The reason will occur at once when some 
of the quotations already made are recalled, c. g. } in the 
last paragraph. It would be a provision outside of what 
is written in the soul. It would not be an unveiling in 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 157 

consciousness to have said to them: "Go ye into all the 
world and preach the gospel to the whole creation. He 
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved ; but he that 
disbelieveth shall be condemned." (There are many rea- 
sons for accepting this as the original language of Jesus, 
but none for accepting "some specialized perception of 
that manifestation of God to man, which is as universal 
as the race. ,J ) 

The creed which Christ was careful to fix in the minds 
of his disciples as the source of the new life for all man- 
kind was himself. "I am the way and the truth and the 
life," he said, "no one cometh unto the Father but by 
me." How then can the life which Christ came to give 
be in the possession of anyone without faith in him? 
God proclaimed the creed Christ gave his church when 
he was baptized in the Jordan, and at his transfiguration ; 
Jesus presented it to the man born blind and heard his, 
"Lord, I believe;" he accepted the profession of it from 
the lips of Martha as she had understood it, and finally 
recognized it as the rock on which he had built his 
church as it was formulated by Peter in behalf of the 
whole company of disciples ; and the declaration : "Thou 
art the Christ, the Son of the living God," was com- 
mitted to them as a sacred confidence which they were 
not yet at liberty to make known. 

It would be exceedingly interesting to follow the nu- 
merous occurrences of this creed in the New Testament 
Scriptures, but we must be satisfied with one. John asks : 
"Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that be- 
lieveth that Jesus is the son of God;" and referring to 
the person, he said: "Whatsoever is begotten of God 



158 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

overcometh the world; and this is the victory that hath 
overcome the world, even our faith." The creed of the 
church Christ founded is something to be believed; it is 
not a philosophy, a speculation nor a formulation of dog- 
mas to divide and destroy the church. Christ appealed to 
his works as the means he employed to produce faith. 
"If I do not the works of my Father believe me not," he 
said. 

But this hasty glance at the conditions on which Christ 
founded his church, in reply to the assumptions and un- 
scriptural declarations of the Evolution of Christianity 
must suffice. A few corollaries remain to be stated. 

Paul's mission, whose outline has been briefly consid- 
ered, harmonizes causally with all the other statements 
of the Bible. The obedience of faith in Jesus is the pri- 
mary and essential ground of admission into the favor 
of God. 

The universal type of life which it was the object of 
his mission to secure among all nations was provided for 
in the Creed on which Christ built his church. 

"The obedience of faith in Christ" is the only sound 
principle on which to affirm the regeneration of the race 
and its transformation into his divine likeness. It is a 
law of our nature to become like those in whom we have 
faith, and the stronger the faith the greater their influ- 
ence over us, and the more complete the change. 

On the authority of Christ, the believing, penitent, bur- 
dened soul finds a refuge and rest in the welcome recep- 
tion given him by the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit 
when he is baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 159 

The remission of sins and gift of the Holy Spirit are 
granted by the Father when the prodigal has become an 
obedient, trusting child, led home by faith in the Son, 
into the same relation graciously ordained for him in his 
original home in Eden. It follows that the benevolence 
of the Creator provided for the highest happiness of his 
creature man from the first and has always, since his fall, 
kept open to him the opportunity for the highest and best 
of which he was capable and willing; proof of which is 
found in the translation of Enoch, the saving of Noah, 
the blessing of Shem, the covenant with Abraham, the 
exaltation of Moses, the translation of Elijah, the splendid 
opportunities of David, the divine unearthly ministry of 
the prophets, the triumphant life, death, resurrection and 
ascension into heaven of Jesus; and last but not least 
the ministry of Christ's disciples in preaching the gospel 
to all nations for the obedience of faith in him as the 
Son of God. 

The obedience of faith in Jesus identifies every disciple 
with his mission into the world. This qualifies him for 
the reception of the Holy Spirit, who is Christ's represent- 
ative in the church. 

The mission of the church, then, is as wide as the 
world, and is a part of the universal movement which the 
Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have always been 
and are now sustaining through the children of God 
for the destruction of evil and the salvation of the lost. 

About two thousand years ago the little church in Jeru- 
salem took its place in history; strong in the indomitable 
fpjth that its crucified, buried, but risen Master was the 
long promised Messiah and had been exalted to reign at 



160 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



the right hand of the Father ; filled with his spirit, over- 
flowing with his love, exhibiting a courage and endurance 
that opposition, persecution, tortures and death could not 
dismay, it entered the arena when the world was one vast 
military camp, with nothing but the gospel of peace in its 
hand. It sought to turn men from worshiping Caesar as 
a god, to the faith and service of the Son of God. Rome 
saw in it a deadly foe ; Judaism sought to destroy it ; and 
still it grew. Were the phenomena of the church, the 
phenomena of heathenism and the phenomena of Judaism 
all subject to the same law of "continuous progressive 
change, according to certain laws and by means of res- 
ident forces?" Can all these phenomena be brought into 
causal connection among themselves? 

We have already studied heathenism sufficiently to 
know its spirit. Rome at the birth of Christ was the 
world's great oppressor. She knew no law but force, and 
no limit to her greed but the number and strength of her 
legions. Cruelty, slavery, inhumanity, and the 
names of all the vices must be employed to tell her 
history. She knew no other glory than her own, and 
felt no love but of this world. 

Judaism had lost its way; was sullen, arrogant and 
defiant ; was enslaved by her traditions and perverted the 
conception of her world mission to bless all nations, into 
that of a world-conquering Messiah who would enslave 
them. Her false assumptions and worldly expectations 
blinded her eyes and froze her heart, so that when her 
Messiah came she could not understand him and killed 
him. 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 161 

But why, in the development of nations, did it become 
necessary to ordain the ministry of the apostles? Why 
send the beloved Son? Why the bitter antagonism of 
the world to both? 

We do not need to search long till it will occur to us 
that the ministry of the apostles was not ordained for 
the purpose of instructing all nations concerning a type 
of life which they already understood and enjoyed. 
Much less would the Son of God empty himself of his 
glory which he had in heaven with his Father, and appear 
in our world in the form of a man and humble himself to 
become a servant, to be mocked and spit upon in silence ; 
and close the tragedy of his humiliation by yielding 
himself up to die on the cross in the company of thieves — 
much less, I say, would he have endured this to give his 
apostles a story to tell all the nations, which they did not 
need to hear. If it is not true that "God so loved the 
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth on him might not perish but have everlasting 
life" then preaching is indeed foolishness and the gospel 
an inexplicable, infinite mockery of the world's miseries. 

Also it is not difficult to perceive the inconsistency of 
the evolutionary hypotheses with this provision of the 
risen Lord for the working out of his mission among 
men; e. g., it is claimed that the conditions of salvation 
are already in the possession of all men; that the race 
is moving unerringly towards its highest destiny under an 
original impulse received at some time in an indefinite 
past; that human destiny is the outcome of an evolution 
which gathers strength from age to age and that each suc- 
ceeding generation advances nearer to it as the result of 



162 THE E VOL UTION THEOR Y 

the augmented life received from the generations that are 
dead; for "the life of God is in the soul." 

The necessity of preaching, and especially of preaching 
the gospel, is not apparent, nor can it be felt where any 
of these speculations is held. It undermines the authority 
of the objective truth of the Bible as a whole, as well as 
the gospel in particular. We are not surprised when men 
holding these opinions tell us that we are in a better posi- 
tion today to state the doctrines of the Christian religion 
than the apostles were. The great pulpit orator who ut- 
tered this sentiment died, and in a few weeks a thousand 
of the members of his congregation had gone over to the 
pews of another sensational preacher. In another case, 
when the preacher died, the congregation met from week 
to week and considered the question whether they had not 
better disband. And what is more logical from such 
premises than that some should claim that they are 
receiving revelations today and reject the ordinances of 
the church and renounce all allegiance to the visible 
church itself? This is all easy enough to him that suppos- 
es himself to be riding on the crest of the wave of an un- 
interrupted, resistless evolution. 

But what do the Scriptures give as the reason for the 
coming of Christ, for his miraculous, divine interposi- 
tion, and the ministry of the apostles? 

A few of the Scriptures applying to the condition of 
Judaism and heathenism must suffice. And first : 

CHRIST'S UTTERANCES CONCERNING THE JEWS. 

'Therefore say I unto you, the kingdom of God shall 
be taken away from you and given to a nation bringing 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 163 

forth the fruits thereof." This "nation" is the one body, 
the church. That the Jew had failed to work out the 
purpose for which the kingdom of God had been given to 
him is the plain meaning of these words. He also said : 
"Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness 
of the scribes and pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into 
the kingdom of heaven." The seven woes of the twenty- 
third chapter of Matthew present the hopelessness of the 
failure; for it is not simple failure, it is fanatical per- 
version; and as a result the messages of God are rejected 
and His messengers persecuted and killed. And the 
yearning heart of the Master declares their house left 
unto them desolate; — the house is left but its rightful 
occupant is gone. 

Christ's personal ministry was confined to the Jews, 
because he regarded them as lost. "The Son of Man is 
come to seek and to save that which was lost," he said. 
And he confined the public ministry of his disciples, while 
he was in the world, to the Jews for the same reason. 
He said to them, "Go not into any way of the Gentiles, 
and enter not into any city of the Samaritans; but go 
rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Isaiah 
foresaw the failure of Israel and sadly sang of it amid 
the scenes of his greatest Messianic vision : "All we lfke 
sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his 
own way, and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of 
us all." Christ was mindful of this prophecy concerning 
him and said to his disciples before healing the Syro- 
Phoenician's daughter, "lam not sent but unto the lost 
sheep of the house of Israel." 



164 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

The path in which they had wandered astray was paved 
with fleshly claims on account of being the seed of Abra- 
ham, and with worldly ambitions on account of their 
promised Messiah. And when they arrogated to them- 
selves the honor of having God for their father, Christ 
met their towering presumption with this withering re- 
buke: "If God were your Father ye would love me, 
for I came forth and am come from God, for neither have 
I come of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not under- 
stand my speech? Even because ye cannot hear my 
word. Ye are of your father, the devil, and the lusts of 
your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer 
from the beginning and stood not in the truth because 
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie he 
speaketh of his own ; for he is a liar and the father there- 
of. But because I say the truth ye believe me not. 
Which of you convicteth me of sin? If I say the truth 
why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth 
the words of God; for this cause ye hear them not, be- 
cause ye are not of God." The bitterness of their antag- 
onism to Christ breaks out in the words : "Say we not 
well that thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil? They 
are soon certain of it, and "take up stones to cast at him." 

The greatest Christian philosopher says in the Roman 
letter: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my con- 
science bearing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, that 
I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. For 
I could wish that I myself were anathema from Christ 
for my brethren's sake, my kinsmen according to the 
flesh, who are Israelites, whose is the adoption, and the 
glory and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 165 

the service of God and the promises, whose are the fathers, 
and of whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is 
over all God blessed forever. Amen." Such a pro- 
found national feeling had never been uttered before, nor 
has it since. And if Paul could have seen a ray of hope 
for his brethren, the Israelites, does any one suppose 
that he could have consented to be anathema from Christ 
for their sake? If the theory of evolution is true, then 
Paul must have considered it a fathomless descent instead 
of an uninterrupted progress — it was the evolution of 
despair where the door of hope is shut. 

But we will let him tell us why they are in this hope- 
less condition. "Israel following after a law of right- 
eousness did not arrive at that law. Wherefore? Be- 
cause they sought it not by faith, but, as it were, by 
works." And hence it came to pass that the problems 
of the external visible life were the subjects of their 
metaphysical distinctions and refinements. Read the 
Sermon on the Mount for an overwhelming exposure of 
the manner in which the true spiritual life was denied its 
proper recognition for the sake of the traditions or spec- 
ulations of the past, and present carnal and material con-* 
siderations. Note in how many instances the Great 
Teacher exposed their illogical, hypocritical interpreta- 
tions and convicted them of making void the command- 
ment of God for the sake of their traditions. It is in this 
treatment of the law that the tap root of their unbelief is 
laid bare. Why did they not say with Paul : "Let God be 
true though every man thereby becomes a liar." This 
treatment of the will of God began in the garden of 
Eden and has been repeated in every so-called philosophy, 



166 THE E VOL UTION THEOR I 

science, speculation or human dogma that has since in- 
validated the truths or commandments, the facts or pre- 
cepts of revelation. Was God in their consciousness un- 
veiling what he wrote in the soul when he made it ? 

The apostle continues : "Brethren, my heart's desire 
and my supplication to God is for them, that they may 
be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a 
zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For being 
ignorant of God's righteousness, and seeking to establish 
their own, they did not subject themselves to the right- 
eousness of God." Again, "By the works of law shall 
no flesh be justified in his .sight, for through the law comes 
the knowledge of sin." It follows from this that the 
most slavish observance of what had been prescribed as 
the works of the law by the traditional teachers of Israel 
failed to secure a type of life that saves. The reason 
appears when we read : "Whatsoever is not of faith is 
sin," and "with the heart man believeth unto right- 
eousness." 

So that we have before us a single condition, a radical 
omission, in the attempt to build up a type of life that 
would be justified or counted righteous by God, and this 
omission vitiates, defeats, the entire result — converts it 
into sin. And we remember the sentence in another 
place: "Without faith it is impossible to please God." 
And, hence, the branches of the tame olive were broken 
off because of unbelief. But now how did the case stand 
with the wild olive? 

Because of its more favorable opportunities and greatly 
superior influences this much attention has been devoted 
to the life of the Jew as Christ found it. It presented 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 167 

to his penetrating vision a barren result, a hollow mock- 
ery, zeal without knowledge, the taxing of all human in- 
genuity to appear righteous ; while they took the standard 
of righteousness from the eyes of men and not from the 
eyes of God by a living faith. The worst passions and 
prejudices were permitted to flourish in the heart, while 
it was believed that righteousness consisted in the fanat- 
ical, slavish observance of the outward forms of law. 
"Brood of vipers, whited sepulchers, adulterers and mur- 
derers, blind and leaders of the blind, fools and hypo- 
crites, ,, were not empty epithets, but well sustained ar- 
raignments of the age. By the side of this we now place 
in a few words a far more hopeless picture ; for the Gentile 
was "without God and without hope in the world" He 
did not choose to retain God in his knowledge and God 
gave him his choice. He permitted him to_ wander in his 
own way, and yet followed him with the material evi- 
dences of his loving kindness in that "he did good and 
gave them rains from heaven and fruitful seasons and 
filled their hearts with food and gladness." Yet "they 
became vain in their imagination and worshiped and 
served the creature rather than the Creator." "His fool- 
ish heart was darkened." Instead of the outward forms 
of righteousness, the open, unblushing forms of vice were 
everywhere practiced, both in public and in private. One 
writer declares, "Virtue is not only rare, it has ceased to 
be." Another says, "When the people lift up their hands 
to pray they lift them up to prostitutes," because cour- 
tesans, like Phrene, had offered themselves and were ac- 
cepted as models for the images of favorite goddesses, espe- 
cially Venus. They thought of the world as animated in 



168 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

all its parts and every part a god. The gods were male and 
female, were born as men are, and practiced all the vices 
of mortals — the oldest theory of evolution. So that sin 
as sin was unknown to the heathen mind. They felt its 
wretchedness but not its guilt; so that one writer declared, 
"We can neither bear our vices nor their remedies." He 
never knew any other than a physical or legal remedy. 
The idea of a reformation proceeding from faith in a 
holy God had no place in his philosophy. Repentance 
towards God and forgiveness of sin were unknown ele- 
ments in the formation of character. And the only 
standard of life was the exaggerated character of men at- 
tributed to the gods. "Men are mortal gods, the gods 
immortal men," says one of their philosophers. 

For about 2300 years this wild olive tree has grown 
in the luxuriant lap of nature. The fairest portions of 
the earth have yielded up their strength to it. All that 
the forces of matter radiating from mountain and vale, 
rivers and seas, fertile plains and friendly climes, or from 
the fairest skies by day and the brightest stars by night, 
and the warmth and energy of an almost endless spring- 
time and summer — all, I say, that the forces of nature 
could do in determining the quantity and character of 
the fruit of the wild olive tree has been done. Environ- 
ment had its greatest opportunity. If there is such a 
thing as an evolution in the world, then we certainly 
would find it here. And yet the fruit of this tree is bit- 
ten — its taste is death. 

The greatest cities of the most fruitful valleys of the 
old world proved to be the tombs of the gods of stone, of 
wood, of clay, of silver and of gold; and, also, of the 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 169 

nations that worshiped them. Their life, their worship, 
their pomp and glory, lie buried under the ruins of their 
temples and palaces. This is history. It began in the 
presumptuous, God-defying undertaking at the tower of 
Babel. There heathenism began. About 2300 years is 
long enough for a full and fair experiment. It was free, 
for "God permitted the nations to wander, each in his 
own way." Let evolutionists consider what they do when 
they claim the results for their theory — when they iden- 
tify God and man. For we have here the history of the 
sad and hopeless struggle of by far the greater portion 
of the race, under the most favorable circumstances, to 
save themselves upon a purely material basis. Faith in 
a spiritual Ruler and Creator of the universe was aban- 
doned at the outset of this assumed evolution. Is it 
possible to evolve what was not at first involved in the 
faith and hope and love of the heart of man? 

The inspired apostle teaches us the philosophy of this 
history in these Words : "That ye no longer walk as 
the Gentiles walk in the vanity of their mind, being 
darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life 
of God through the ignorance that is in them, because 
of the hardness of their heart, who being past feeling, 
gave themselves up to lasciviousness to make a trade of 
all uncleanliness with greediness." 

The theory that the salvation of man depends upon 
his evolution under the influence of conditions already in 
his possession, thus rendering divine, miraculous interpo- 
sitions from without historically unnecessary and untrue, 
is again, in the case of the Gentile also, as well as the 
Jew, thus shown to be contradicted by the facts. Indi- 

12 



170 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

vidual exceptions in either case do not invalidate the 
results to which we have been led. The results are both 
negative, i. e., opposed to righteousness and hence posi- 
tively evil. The arenas in which they are worked out 
are different, but the principle underlying each is the 
same — unbelief. The Jew strained out the gnats while 
he swallowed camels, but the Gentile had no eye to see 
the difference between them and plunged headlong into 
the enjoyment of all visible, sensuous and animal pleas- 
ures. The Jew scrupulously sought to avoid contamina- 
tion from the touch of things unclean, but the Gentile 
offered swine in sacrifice to Jupiter and poured the broth, 
made from the flesh, about the sacred courts of Jehovah's 
temple and polluted the Holy of Holies with filth. Thus 
two irreconcilable national forces are in the world ; for all 
the nations agreed in the fundamental principle of their 
religions and in hating and oppressing the Jew. Even 
the Jews and their nearest neighbors, the Samaritans, 
had no dealings one with another. The hope of the Jew 
was that the Messiah would subdue all the other nations 
and give their glory to him. The Gentiles relied upon 
brute force as the fundamental law of nations and con- 
quered and enslaved all whom they could bring under the 
yoke, statesmen and philosophers, mothers and babes, 
alike. No mortal arm was strong enough to stay or 
even direct the course of these two foes, so that harmony 
could exist between them, and the world have peace. 

The universally accepted history of both Jews and 
Gentiles fully corroborates the inspired writers in their 
statement of causes. And if evolution is to be found 
anywhere it ought to appear in the world spirit of zov- 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 171 

trolling national purpose, on the broad arena where na- 
tions meet and display what is in them. We have studied 
the Jew and Gentile separately, and briefly compared 
their spiritual condition with the teaching of Christ; let 
us now look at them as nations. 

The Jews blindly and obstinately facing extermination 
from sword and famine during the siege of Jerusalem by 
the Roman army under Titus is one of the most tragic and 
pathetic chapters in human history. It was a struggle on 
the side of the Jew for physical existence under the hollow 
conception of national independence. The spiritual life 
had long since departed ; and Judaism emptied of the 
spirit and purpose of the Abrahamic covenant had fallen 
to the same level of existence as the other nations of the 
earth. And, coming from opposite extremes, the two 
great world forces meet for the last time in this terrific 
struggle. It was the last time the national energies of 
the Jews were concentrated in one supreme contest with 
the power of the Gentiles for independence. But the 
national purpose was shattered by the mad strife of fa- 
natical sects. Dr. Smith regards this as "the most mo-? 
mentous revolutionary epoch in the religious history of the 
world — that ever was or ever shall be." He also says; 
"The withdrawal of the Christians in a body to Pella 
was the extinction of spiritual life in the city, and the 
dead forms of Judaism were now only fit to be swept 
from the face of the earth as Christ had predicted." In 
fact since 63 B. C, the spirit of national unity and integ- 
rity had been dead — murdered by rival aspirants to the 
throne, and betrayed by inviting Pompey, a heathen, to 
decide the issues between two contending brothers, aspir- 



1 72 2 HE E VOL UTIO N THEOR Y 

ants to the throne of Judea, and between them and the 
people. Everybody knows how the wily Roman improved 
his opportunity to advance his own interests, from protec- 
tion to conquest. So that in 37 B. C, by the aid of 
Rome, the son of Antipater, an Idumean prince who had 
earned the title of being a "devastator of the land." the 
son of such a man became king of Judea. He was a 
representative of the worst elements of heathenism by his 
birth, his lawlessness, his climax of lust, inhumanity and 
brutality. And thus the scepter departed forever from 
Judah; for Shilo came while he was king, and it was 
Herod the Great who first sought to slay him. In what 
does the evolution consist here? Where is the progress? 
How long would it require to reach the highest national 
destiny of man had he been left, without interruption, to 
such influences as these? Was Christ mistaken when he 
said "you are of your father the devil," or will the evo- 
lutionist say God was "inextricably woven together with 
their souls?" 

It was in 70 A. D. that the Jew saw the overthrow of 
Judaism, the destruction of Jerusalem and especially the 
reduction to ashes of the great central shrine from whose 
divine appointments his religious life was fed. For 
nearly forty years the church has been pursuing her mis- 
sion of love. Churches praying for the peace and salva- 
tion of men had been founded in the most populous re- 
gions of the world by the apostles and converts of the 
church at Jerusalem. But the Jews as a race never en- 
tered into this development. Local fanaticism and the 
leadership of ambitious deceivers and false pretenders to 
the Messiahship, frequently plunged the helpless masses 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 173 

into the horrors of insurrection and rebellion against the 
power of Rome. The pretender, Barcochba, inaugur- 
ated a rebellion which was carried on from 132 to 135 
A. D., and it is estimated that 580,000 fell by the sword, 
and that countless numbers perished by the calamities of 
war. In this period from Herod to Barcochba, not far 
from one and one-half million Jews perished by the sword, 
hundreds of thousands were driven into exile, and tens 
of thousands were sold into slavery. With the same 
fury that they resisted heathen rule, they oppressed the 
church — stoned Stephen, beheaded James and drove the 
disciples of Jesus, whom they had crucified, from their 
homes in Jerusalem into the wide world; but they went 
everywhere preaching th gospel of peace and love. Read 
the words in which Paul utters his longing for the salva- 
tion of his kinsmen and compare them with the spirit of 
the Jew during this entire period — from the strife for the 
throne carried on between Hyrcanus and Aristobulus in 
63 B. C. down to Barcochba, a period of nearly 200 
years — and decide whether there was anything in it (I 
mean the spirit that moved the nation) that could have 
produced such a life as Paul's. I need not say such a life 
as Christ's. Yet no one denies that both lived in this 
period. And yet according to the hypothesis of "contin- 
uous progressive change," the Christian church, with its 
spirit and teaching, must have been produced by the spirit 
of Judaism somewhere within these limits. Credat Ap~ 
pelles quadrumanus, non ego. 

In the realm of thought there had been interpositions 
that would have saved the Jews from the calamities, had 
they been heeded. An interposition in this sphere is 



174 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

infinitly more important to the race than those which 
have occurred in the sphere of matter, had they been in- 
tended to stop there. Indeed both have the same purpose 
in the divine plan — the opening of the eyes of the under- 
standing, pointing out the path in which God would lead, 
and helping men to a right choice. 

For more than fifteen centuries the warning voice of 
Moses had said : "Moreover all these curses shall come 
upon thee and shall pursue thee and overtake thee, till 
thou be destroyed ; because thou hearkenedst not unto the 
voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments 
and his statutes which he commanded thee ; and they shall 
be upon thee for a sign and for a wonder and upon thy 
seed forever. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy 
God with joy fulness, and with gladness of heart, for the 
abundance of all things; therefore shalt thou serve thine 
enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hun- 
ger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of aU 
things; and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, 
until he have destroyed thee. The Lord shall bring a 
nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, 
as swift as the eagle flieth ; a nation whose tongue thou 
shalt not understand; a nation of fierce countenance, 
which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show 
favor to the young ; and he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle 
and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed ; which 
also shall not leave thee corn, wine or oil, or the increase 
of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed 
thee. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates ; until thy 
high and fenced walls come down wherein thou trustedst, 
throughout all thy land; and he shall besiege thee in all 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 175 

thy gates throughout all thy land, which the Lord thy 
God hath given thee. And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine 
own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters, 
which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege and 
in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress 
thee. . . . And ye shall be left few in numbers, 
whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude, 
because thou wouldst not obey the voice of the Lord thy 
God. . . . And the Lord shall scatter thee among 
all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the 
other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither 
thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone. 
And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither 
shall the sole of thy foot have rest, but the Lord shall 
give thee then a trembling heart and failing of eyes and 
sorrow of mind ; and thy life shall hang in doubt before 
thee; and thou shalt fear day and night and shalt have 
no assurance of thy life." 

So much of this is literally true of the condition of 
this most mysterious and yet everywhere visible race, at 
this very hour, that no one can entertain a reasonable 
doubt about the utterances of Moses being the result of 
divine interposition. And this interposition could not 
have been a conditon of "the inner consciousness" of the 
nation; it must have been a voice outside and above it. 
It is blasphemous to identify Jehovah with the mental 
status of this nation with these awful warnings before 
us. 

These words have stood the test of almost 3600 years. 
Within that time the tombs of Egypt have received the 
dry mummies of the kings whose throbbing brain once 



176 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

commanded the armies of the Nile and filled the north 
with fearful apprehension of their enterprise and power. 
But, for more than 2500 years "her people have been 
the basest of the kingdoms." Babylon rose from an ob- 
scure past to be the seat of the greatest empire of the 
then known world under Nebuchadnezzar, and even after 
it was taken by Cyrus, and became the capital of the Medo 
Persian empire; but for many centuries it has been "a 
place for pools of water and where wild beasts make 
their dens" in its buried palaces. Ninevah, the pride of 
the Assyrian, whose kings desolated the land of Israel 
and many others, also is swallowed up in one vast mound 
of earth and sand, swept upon it by the howling desert 
winds. Macedon rose like a meteor under Alexander 
the Great and lifted Greece into the blaze and glory of 
a universal empire, but like a meteor also disappeared. 
Indeed her reliable historical records begin with her first 
recorded Olimpiad, 776 B. C. Rome began her career 
about the same time. She placed a crown of iron on the 
head of her kings, and with iron hands they conquered 
the world. The eagle was the banner which led her 
armies and throughout the world its presence was the 
badge of conquest and of slavery. The siege and destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem by the Romans is too plainly described 
by Moses to need further identification than the universal- 
ly familiar account of that most harrowing and sorrowful 
chapter in human history by Josephus. Yet through all 
these revolutions, the words of Moses stand firm. They 
put into the thoughts of men 36 centuries ago motives 
for the faithful and joyful worship of Jehovah. All the 
prophets added their warnings to these. Is it unreason- 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 111 

able that a merciful God should seek to avert the calami- 
ties which he foreknows must follow a wrong choice by 
his people? His methods of influencing the actions of 
men have been educational from the beginning and hence 
all the nations were warned by the prophets of Israel. 
But the thoughtful student of His faithful watchcare 
will need no further mention of examples of the inter- 
position by means of which He has put into the thoughts 
of men through the prophets the lessons needed to guide 
them in choosing his paths and walking in his ways. 
That which was given "for a sign and a wonder upon 
thy seed forever" is just as much a sign for us. We 
upon whom the end of ages have come may see more 
clearly the lessons taught by the interpositions of the 
divine will and intelligence, than those who live nearer 
to the time of their occurrence — if we will. They are 
now history in some parts, and in others are being fulfilled 
before our eyes. The irreverence of this age, which robs 
these utterances of Moses and of other prophets of God 
of their authorship and thus weakens or removes alto- 
gether the faith we have in them as the words of God, 
will stand in the judgment without excuse, and the tes^ 
timony of all past ages against them, in the form of ful- 
filled prophecy. Would Jehovah thus warn and threaten 
himself if he is identical with man or is personally im- 
prisoned in his inner consciousness? 

The representation of this subject, however, would fall 
far short of being complete should we fail to add some 
of the words of Christ which illustrate it. As a faithful 
shepherd he urged his flock to seek safety in flight when 
they saw the signs of the destruction of Jerusalem. These 



178 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

signs he enumerated, and they were so manifest that, 
when they appeared, the entire church in Jerusalem, num- 
bering more than 5,000, left the city in a body and took 
up their residence in Pella, a town east of the Jordan, in 
what was known as Decapolis. The importance of this 
lies in the clear distinction that the Master makes be- 
tween his disciples and the nation of the Jews. The 
latter is abandoned to the cruel power of the invader, 
but the prophetic vision of Christ pierced the events of 
forty years and interposes His word for the rescue of His 
followers. So wide and deep was the abyss between 
the two type of life in the thought and feeling of Christ. 
Was he mistaken then ? Are we now able to see, nineteen 
centuries since, how and where the church evolved out of 
Judaism? I think not. Dare we close our eyes to the 
fact that Christ was a new source of life to his church, as 
he taught : "He that believeth on the Son hath ever- 
lasting life, but he that obeyeth not the Son shall not see 
life, but the wrath of God abideth on him?" How could 
the wrath of God abide upon his own life in the soul ? 

But we will read. "When ye see Jerusalem compassed 
with armies, then know that her desolation is at hand. 
There shall be great distress upon the land and wrath 
unto this people. And they shall fall by the edge of the 
sword and shall be led captive into all nations. And 
Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the 
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." 

"O that thou hadst known in this day, even thou, the 
things which belong unto peace ! but now they are hid 
from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee 
when thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee and 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 179 

compass thee round and keep thee in on every side; and 
shall dash thee to the ground and thy children within thee ; 
and they shall not leave within thee one stone upon an- 
other, because thou knowest not the time of thy visit- 
ation." 

Both Moses and Christ agree in making the calamities 
which they foretell depend upon the conduct of the Jews, 
Moses said, "Because thou wouldest not obey the voice of 
the Lord thy God." Christ said, "O Jerusalem, Jerusa-i 
lem, thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that 
are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy 
children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens 
under her wings and ye would not !" The will of the peo- 
ple was opposed to the will of God and of his Son. They 
rejected the things that belonged to peace, though offered 
to them by the Prince of Peace. God and Moses and 
Christ and his church are in the same line of develop- 
ment. The Jewish nation stands opposed to that develop- 
ment — hinders and destroys it. Was God in the Jew 
while he refused to believe his words, resisted and finally 
killed his Son? 

"Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," said 
Christ. "Therefore I will judge you, O House of Israel, 
every one according to his ways, saith the Lord God. 
Repent and turn from all your transgressions, so iniquity 
shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your 
transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make 
you a new heart and a new spirit — for why will ye die, 
O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death 
of him that dieth saith the Lord ; wherefore turn and live 
ye," said Ezekiel, representing the voice of God by all his 



180 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

prophets from Moses to Christ. John, the forerunner 
of the Messiah, said to the multitude who came to be 
baptized by him: "O generation of vipers, who hath 
warned you to flee from the wrath to come. Bring forth 
therefore fruits worthy of repentance and begin not to say 
within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father ; for I 
say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up 
children unto Abraham. And now also the axe is laid at 
the root of the trees ; every tree therefore that bringeth not 
forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire." 
God could not be represented by his prophet as hewing 
down what he had caused to grow out of the inner con- 
sciousness of his people. 

Now, this connected, consistent unity of prophetic 
thought from Moses to Christ deals at every step with an 
opposing, antagonistic, rebellious development going on 
or foreseen in the hearts of men, and especially in the 
hearts of the Jews. It presents the work of a faithful 
teacher advancing from lesson to lesson as the pupils 
were prepared to receive it, with announcements of the 
consequences of disobedience. And hence repentance was 
urged by the prophets and Christ alike, as necessary to 
escape from a course of development which the prophets 
had foretold for sixteen centuries would lead to utter 
ruin. And what shall we say of a so-called science that 
flies in the face of the Author of these revelations to the 
human mind, and declares that there are no such things 
as divine, superhuman interpositions in the history and 
development of men outside of and above them? As al- 
ready said, an interposition in the realm of thought is of 
the highest importance to the race. For we have seen 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 181 

in another place that no race of men having lost the 
knowledge of the true God has succeeded in recovering it 
by their own exertions. The prophets uttered the 
thoughts of God communicated to them for the instruc- 
tion of men — "line upon line, precept upon precept, here 
a little and there a little." It is unreasonable to attempt 
to construe history upon the hypothesis that a benevolent 
Creator would not interpose both his omniscience and his 
omnipotence to aid his creatures in reaching their highest 
destiny — eternal life and bliss ; but, most unreasonable of 
all, is the theory that engulfs the personality of the Cre- 
ator out of sight in the chaotic abyss of the inner con- 
sciousness of nations and individuals. 

Shall it be said then that it is not scientific, that it is not 
historical, thinking when we affirm that from Adam to 
Christ there is an unbroken, harmonious and infallible 
series of divine, superhuman interpositions, external to 
man, whose divine purpose was the upholding of the 
Abrahamic covenant and to secure its miraculous fulfill- 
ment in Christ? Why drive the heart of the Infinite 
Father out of the course of history instead of recognizing 
it as the highest and noblest personal factor in it — why do 
that and substitute for God an impersonal evolution? 
For where God and man are supposed to be identical, 
the objective personality of God is blotted out, and he is 
submerged in the personality of man. He is robbed of 
his personal authority over the conscience, of his object- 
ive personal holiness, omnipotence and omniscience, and 
is identified with all the perverted acts of man's intellect, 
faith, conscience, affections and will. 



182 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



It follows, therefore, from the historical facts found 
in both these lines of development that the Jews as a 
nation failed to meet the requirements of the divine pur- 
pose in the history of the world, and were, for that reason, 
rejected in the plans of Christ to save the world by the 
obedience of faith. It is also clear that the word of Je- 
hovah has not failed, and that it still stands. If Jehovah 
had identified himself personally with his chosen people, 
entered into personal identity with them, instead of show- 
ing forth his majesty and glory in such ways as to remain 
through all their history an object of faith, whose holi- 
ness did not permit the unclean to come into his presence ; 
then we would have the absurd spectacle of the failure of 
Jehovah to accomplish his purpose, though personally 
residing in the consciousness of his people, while his 
word endures forever. 

Isaiah said, "My thoughts are not your thoughts, nei- 
ther are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the 
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher 
than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. 
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, 
and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and 
maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to 
the sower and bread to the eater : so shall my word be 
that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return 
unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please 
and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it." 
This message is true and life-giving today. It is an ex- 
ternal revelation of the thoughts and purposes of the 
Lord God, who is external to man. It is not an expres- 
sion of a "divine-human consciousness;" it is divine 



THE THREE WORLD SP IRITS 183 

intelligence and feeling watering the arid, impoverished 
soul of the unbelieving, the rebelious human heart, which 
has wasted its inheritance. Jehovah knows the effect- 
iveness of divine truth and love in the court of reason and 
he gives to the human heart and understanding what 
they had lost as freely as he gives the rain and snow to 
the earth that it "may bring forth and bud." 

There is progress in the giving of "the word that goeth 
forth out of the mouth" of Jehovah ; but it is not progress 
"by means of forces resident" in man ; it is the progress 
of the wise schoolmaster who presents the lesson as the 
pupil is prepared to receive it. We can, now, since Christ 
came, see the unity, harmony and fitness of the complete 
course. This course is objective now and was given in 
objective forms as originally taught. As we have seen, 
the Jew failed to comprehend it, by his speculations made 
void the commandment of God, and "took to himself 
seven spirits more wicked than the first." But God's 
word went on to its fulfillment notwithstanding. We 
can see that fulfillment in some of the most important 
chapters in the history of the past and it is the greatest 
living force of the present. God's word is not "evanes- 
cent and transitory" When Israel failed, turned back in 
their hearts to Egypt, and Jehovah condemned them to 
die in the wilderness without seeing the land of Canaan, 
he said, hopeless as the prospect would seem to human 
eyes, "Truly as I live all the earth shall be filled with the 
glory of Jehovah." According to the Evolution of Chris- 
tianity the church presents "an arrested Christian develop- 
ment," already, about the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
tury; the development of Judaism, as we have learned 



184 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

from history, was arrested more than two thousand years 
ago; and the great heathen races of the past have long 
since perished, and those that remain have made no prog- 
ress for thousands of years. And it is the conviction of 
all, whose souls have been watered and made fruitful by 
the word of Jehovah, that the heathen of today will never 
make any progress into a new intellectual, moral and 
spiritual life until their souls have been watered, too, by 
the same word. The believing, obedient soul has an ex- 
perience caused by the reception of this objective expres- 
sion of the thoughts, feelings and purposes of God, which 
ought to count for something in the study of phenomena, 
especially since these phenomena are as general as the 
presence and reception of the teaching of the Bible. For 
as "the earth brings forth and buds" only within the 
area of the rain and the snow, so it is in the area of the 
fruitfulness and progress of the human soul. You can 
locate the boundaries within which the Bible is believed 
and read by drawing a line around about the great civil- 
izations of the world. Within that area you find a pure 
standard of religious, moral and spiritual life, you find 
steady progress in learning and all the useful arts — you 
find the best that the race has produced. The Evolution 
of Christianity ought to have told its readers why the 
so-called ''Christian development" was arrested. Every- 
body knows that this development which the Evolution 
of Christianity calls Christian ( ?) prohibited the reading 
of the Bible, and that those who read it and kept it, con- 
cealed it from the inquisitor, even making little recesses 
in the walls of their houses for that purpose. The Spirit 
and life of God abandoned (if they ever entered) the 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 185 

church of Rome as a development — the Spirit of God 
will not go where His word does not or cannot go. The 
Spirit of God was with the Waldenses and the Hugenots 
and the unknown thousands who for the sake of their 
faith in the word of God fled from their homes to escape 
the inquisitor, the Duke Alvas, the massacres of St. Bar- 
tholomew's day, oppressions and robberies of every kind. 
God and Christ and the Holy Spirit lived by faith in the 
hearts of these believing victims of the bloodiest tyranny 
the world ever knew. And yet to save the false assump- 
tions of the Christian evolutionist we are asked to be- 
lieve his further naked assumptions that the pause in 
the career of this monster of ungodly and un-Christian 
assumptions is " an example of arrested Christian devel- 
opment." Everybody not enslaved by a theory knows 
that it was the light turned upon this hideous monster 
by Luther's translation of the Bible into the language 
of the common people that caused this "pause," and in 
doing that fertilized the soil of the human heart with 
the conviction of personal liberty in matters pertaining 
to religious belief and conscience. The conviction that 
the Bible is the only source and an external source of 
religious life has grown with the years during which 
it has been freely used and universally read. This convic- 
tion lies at the foundation of all missionary work, Bible 
printing and preaching, Bible schools and Sunday schools. 
Neither the Christian religion nor Christian civilization 
has come to races that have not received the Bible. In 
1896 the British and Foreign Bible Society published 
"Bibles, Testaments and bound portions of the Bible" 
to the enormous number of 3,970,439, and the whole num- 



186 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



ber issued since 1804 reaches 146,366,669. In three hun- 
dred and twenty languages and dialects this message from 
the invisible Father of Spirits is borne to his children in 
all parts of the earth. From 1884 to 1896, 5,956,958 
copies of the New Testament alone were issued. Of 
Oxford Bibles an average output is 200,000 copies per 
week, and the shipments to America alone, for the same 
time, are five and one-half tons, and are increasing. Are 
these phenomena which represent the movements of more 
than 150,000,000 minds and hearts of the best men and 
women on earth to be accounted for by saying that the 
contents of this Book are "evanescent and transitory?" 
No one thinks so unless he is blinded by a theory which 
cannot bring phenomena into causal connection among 
themselves. 

Only one more question and we close this chapter. Do 
not arrested developments, that have been standing where 
God's lightning struck them for four centuries, for twenty 
centuries and more, without any sign of "continuous pro- 
gressive change" — do not such phenomena demonstrate 
that "the forces by means of which progress is brought 
about"ar£ not resident? Do they not demonstrate that, 
if they ever were resident, they have long since departed ? 
What but the obedience of faith in Jesus, on the part of 
both Jew and Gentile, can bring into that relation to the 
Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; for which 
Christ prayed : "Neither pray I for these alone, but for 
them also who shall believe on me through their word, 
that they all may be one, as thou Father art in me and 
I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world 
may believe that thou hast sent me." This unity is not 



THE THREE WORLD SPIRITS 187 

to be sought in "the unveiling in human consciousness 
what God wrote in the soul when he made it ; but "in us" 
"one in us," and the great practical end to be gained is 
"that the world may believe that thou didst send me;" 
and "through their word they shall believe on me" This 
is the glory of the Christian, to be in the Father and in the 
Son and the Holy Spirit in him; and, if he comprehends 
his position and his mission, he can sing: 

"The Prince of salvation in triumph is riding, 

And glory attends him along his bright way; 
The news of his grace on the breezes is gliding, 

And nations are owning his sway. 
Ride on in thy greatness, thou conquering Savior! 

Let thousands of thousands submit to thy reign, 
Acknowledge thy goodness, entreat for thy favor, 

And follow thy glorious train. 
Then loud shall ascend from each sanctified nation 

The voice of thanksgiving, the chorus of praise ; 
And heaven shall re-echo the song of salvation 

In rich and melodious lays." 



188 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



CHAPTER V. 



THE DIVINE METHOD OF IMPARTING SPIRITUAL 
LIFE TO THE SOUL OF MAN. 

"Life antedates all progress, and evolution only traces 
progress. The evolutionary theologian, then, must be- 
lieve that the spiritual life shows itself in continuous 
progress according to an orderly and regular sequence; 
but his belief in evolution will throw no light whatever 
on the secret of that life which antedates spiritual pro- 
gress. He must believe that this spiritual force is res- 
ident in humanity; but how came it to be resident in 
humanity, evolution cannot tell him." — The Evolution of 
Christianity. 

The principal interest we have in giving this quotation 
is the declaration that "this spiritual force, that life that 
antedates spiritual progress, is resident in humanity," and 
that spiritual force and spiritual life mean the same thing. 
It would contribute nothing now to our purpose to point 
out the ambiguity in the use of the word "life." The 
mind of the author of these sentiments gives some evi- 
dence of falling away from this confidence near the close 
of his book. He says : "Thus the animal is, while man 



THE DIVINE METHOD 189 



never is, but always becoming. Whence did he receive 
this divine, this immortal, this undying, this illimitable 
life? Is the author of the first chapter of Genesis cor- 
rect? Did God at some moment in man's upward career, 
by an instantaneous act, breathe the breath of divine life 
into man ? Or are we to accept the theory of the radical 
evolutionists, as interpreted by Le Conte and Darwin, and 
believe that this higher nature of man was developed out 
of the lower animal instinct, as the body of men out of an 
earlier and inferior form? This latter hypothesis must 
be regarded as yet among the unproved hypotheses of 
science with more at present, it seems to me, against than 
for it. But the question is one of science, not of religion, 
and we may well leave it for science to determine." 

We are thankful that there seems to be some hope for 
the author of Genesis. lie may be correct if the scientific 
experts fail to prove that the unreasoning instincts of ani- 
mals have been evolved into the reason, moral and spirit- 
ual nature, "the higher nature of man." But it has al- 
ways been understood by the best men and the best think- 
ers that religion had to do chiefly with "the higher nature 
of man," and that the production and cherishing of its 
"divine, immortal, undying, illimitable" spiritual life was 
its sole aim. But the evolutionist is not concerned about 
the question — whence this life? He simply imagines 
that he, in common with all mankind, possesses it — that 
it is a resident force in humanity ; and hence the apathy. 
Hence, also, this idea : "I believe that the notion of sec- 
ondary causes, proceeding from a great First Cause, must 
be set aside." Now let us read a little from the philoso- 
phy of the Stoics : , "Matter is the passive ground of 



190 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



things, the primary substratum of divine activity ; God is 
the active and building force of matter, residing in it and 
essentially combined with it; the world is the body of 
God, and God is the soul of the world. The world has 
no existence for itself; it is not a finite existence, exist- 
ing for itself, ; it is produced, animated, ruled by 
God; it is a great living thing whose rational 
soul is divinity; everything in it is equally divine, be- 
cause the divine energy uniformly pervades everything; 
God is in it as the eternal necessity, which causes all 
things to follow each other according to an unchangeable 
law." The already often repeated declarations of the 
Evolution of Christianity, setting forth the same concep- 
tions of the relation of God to the world and to man will 
be readily recalled. These conceptions formulated 340 
B. C, so nearly repeat what we have grown so familiar 
with in the Evolution of Christianity, we feel no hesita- 
tion in asking: wherein does the progress consist? It 
is a legitimate subject of investigation to find how two 
men separated by two thousand two hundred and forty 
years could independently arrive at substantially the 
same conclusions on a subject of such vital importance. 
Such phenomena do not conform to the evolutionary for- 
mula requiring "continuous progressive change." The 
phenomena of the mind of the evolutionist himself are an 
exception to his law, and hence, on his own authority, 
"the law does not exist." But aside from the identifi- 
cation of the philosophy of Zeno, the founder of one 
of the oldest pantheistic systems, with which the Grecian 
mind was familiar — identifying this with the fundamental 
assumptions of the Evolution of Christianity I have no 



THE DIVINE METHOD 191 

further use for these extracts than to refresh the memory 
of the reader with the assumption "that spiritual life, 
or spiritual force, is resident in humanity." It is my 
object to state briefly as I can the divine method of be- 
getting spiritual life in the soul of man. 

In this last chapter it will be proper to restate some of 
my leading affirmative answers to the assumptions of ev- 
olution, especially the Evolution of Christianity, before 
giving the last argument. 

The first step was to point out that the evolutionary 
formula accepted from the hands of professed evolution- 
ists by the author of the Evolution of Christianity was 
an impracticable hypothesis and that for this reason a 
large number of unheard of subsidiary assumptions were 
made to aid in carrying it through. As a consequence 
it was claimed that the evolution could not be Christian, 
since it would be the product of unchristian conceptions. 
By the testimony of the race it was shown that the phe- 
nomena of the world as presented in animate and inani- 
mate nature have been uniform and have not indicated 
"continuous progressive change," and the same thing was 
shown to be taught by science in the invariability of the 
sum total of the energy of the material universe, which 
cannot be increased nor diminished except by an external 
agent, and it follows that the material universe, as far as 
we know it, issued from chaos possessed of the same total 
amount of energy that it has today ; and hence, also, there 
has been no progressive change because "the resident 
forces" were constant, and progress from lower to higher, 
into new life not possessed before, would require the inter- 
position of external agents, which is contrary to the evo- 



192 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



lutionary formula. The formula, therefore, breaks down 
from a lack of support in the known phenomena of the 
universe, and the tendency points to a time in the future 
when all phenomena shall cease. There are no witnesses 
but God, his Son, the Holy Spirit and the angels, of 
what took place in Chaos. 

In the third chapter we reviewed the phenomena of 
heathenism, to discover if possible the "progressive 
change," for the Evolution of Christianity assumes that 
all life is subject to its formula. We found heathenism 
to be a complete negation of the evolutionary assumption ; 
for, following the universally accepted classification of 
the states of the soul under the intellect, the sensibilities 
and the will, we found a continuous degeneration of the 
soul life, reproduced in the external life and culminating 
in the death and decay of all intellectual, moral and 
national life. The personality of God was lost, nature 
was animated, and the life of man was indisiinguishably 
lost in the life of the world. So that if the life of God 
and his personal presence are in the soul ; if man and 
God are in very essence one, then it follows that the 
assumed " resident force" in humanity, God himself, has 
failed to nroduce "progressive change. " 

In the fourth chapter it was found that a new world- 
spirit differing from the spirit of Judaism, and especially 
from the spirit of heathenism, entered history in the or- 
ganization of the Christian church. This development 
had a worM-wide mission, as was shown :n the conver- 
sion and appointment of Paul to the office of an apostle. 
This mission was confined to "opening the eyes of the 
Gentiles;" the effect to be wrought in the Gentiles was 



THE DIVINE METHOD 193 

tint they might turn from Satan to God; and the specific 
act? in which this change was to be brought about were 
comprehended in the simple generalization, "the obedience 
of faith;" no other type of life was recognized as the 
aim of the ministry of the apostles, nor was any other 
permitted to enter into the development of the life of the 
church. The faith from which this obedience springs 
is faith in Jesus ; which, as adopted by himself for his 
followers, reads: "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
living God.'' Faith in this divine person, described In 
this proposition, became a new and living force in the 
hearts ot those who accepted it It triumphed over every 
worldly, selfish consideration and was as omnipotent as 
the arm of Jesus in the presence of death. It had the 
assurance of divine acceptance, pardon, and the gift of 
the Holy Sprit, the moment the complete surrender was 
marie, in the obedience of faith to the authority of Jesus 
Christ. B> the authority of Jesus Christ, as testified by 
the Holy Spnit, baptism into the name of the Father and 
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit consummated the turn- 
ing to God and gave the obedient, believing, penitent prod- 
igal the personal assurance of a welcome home. These 
are the plain declarations of the New Testament Scrip- 
tures concerning the life of the Christian church and its 
mission. It stands alone. While its purpose is to bring 
life to all, it receives life from none. It kills to make 
alive. It smites the hate of Jew and Gentile with the 
love of Jesus and conquers both by its patience in suffer- 
ing, its unyeilding faith under torture and its joyful tri- 
umph in death. To say that such phenomena are ex- 
plained by "a spiritual force that is resident in humanity/' 



194 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

obliterates all moral distinctions; and "inseparably and 
indistingn'shably commingles" the fountain of human 
history. It is a satisfaction, nevertheless, to know that 
the distinctions that separate heathenism from Judaism 
and both from the Christian church can be easily seen 
and stated. We saw in this chapter that the human race 
had never endured fiercer conflicts, and that national 
prejudice and hatred were never more bitter and unspar- 
ing, at the very time the church began her career, weak 
as to numbers, obscure as to the greater part of her mem- 
bers, and with no visible power on earth to sanction her 
claims or draw a sword in her defense; still, in the midst 
of the commotions and dangers of war she went every- 
where proclaiming her message of peace on earth and 
good will among men. Paganism sought to make an 
ally of this new power by putting its spirit into the body 
of the church, but the result in about one thousand years 
was an "arrested Christian development" on the admis- 
sion of the Evolution of Christianity. We have no hes- 
itation in saying that it never was Christian in spirit. 
But Pagan or Christian, it is an arrested development; 
Judaism presents the same phenomena and the surviving 
heathen nations give no signs of progress; so that the 
only hope of those who have experienced the new life in 
Jesus, is to bear it to them, let it cost what it may. 

But now to our inquiry concerning this life and the di- 
vine method of begetting it in the human soul. Briefly 
stated it is simply this : God gives his word. With this 
will agree the lives of Old Testament saints as well as 
New. They believed God and it was counted unto them 
for righteousness. This was just the relation between 



THE DIVINE METHOD 195 

the Creator and his creature man in the garden of Eden. 
God gave them his word. It remained for them to be- 
lieve him and obey. What kind of being man would 
have been had he not been free in this matter, is so far 
beyond our knowledge and power of knowing, we would 
be wiser to try to rightly appreciate our freedom and use 
it for the purpose it was bestowed upon us, than to con- 
demn the Creator for permitting the use of it in this par- 
ticular case. This much may be said, however little we 
may be able to comprehend of what our condition would 
be without freedom to choose or act, that we would rather 
have freedom with all the evils of its abuse than to be 
deprived of it. These remarks can be mentally enclosed 
in parenthesis and we continue to consider that even 
Satan respected the freedom of man and secured his pur- 
pose by bringing about a voluntary belief of his falsehood 
and the consequent disbelief of God's truth. Man stands 
or falls as he believes or disbelieves the word which Je- 
hovah gives him. A man cannot stand long in the pulpit 
after he makes it clear that he does not believe the Bible 
came to us from God and has the sanction of his divine 
authority. Adam forfeited his place so near to God by 
rejecting God and going over with his heart to Satan. 
Every man who knowingly sins does the same thing in 
principle though there may be a difference in degree. 
We have the consequences to restrain us ; Adam had per- 
sonal communion with his Creator and the delights of 
Eden; and, again, it may also be said, we have the evi- 
dence that "the Lord, the Lord God, is merciful and gra- 
cious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and 
truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity 



196 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear 
the guilty; visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the 
children, and upon the children's children, unto the third 
and to the fourth generation" — we have the evidence of 
this, but Adam knew only the joy of his personal presence. 
The experience of 6,000 years of the consequences of 
sin and of God's dealings with the sinner is the best 
Theodice. The obedience of faith was the type of life 
the Creator designed should have a home in the garden 
and it is that type alone that will entitle the posterity of 
Adam to return. The Church of Christ has more ground 
for an exalted, joyful enthusiasm than any other institu- 
tion on earth; and its love for the lost members of the 
race should not be quenched by a heartless philosophy. * 
But let us glance hastily along the line of the ancient 
heroes of faith. Abel was rendered immortal in history 
by obeying faith's promptings in the sacrifice he brought 
to Jehovah. Enoch walked with God by faith, and was 
distinguished above all that generation by his translation 
from earth and heaven. Noah believed God and obeyed 
his word in the building of the ark, and, with his sons 
and their wives and his own, escaped the flood. On this 
side its waters God gave him and his children a word of 
hope for the future, a covenant pledging the continuance 
of the regular order of nature and the return of seed- 
time and harvest. This required a high order of faith 
while the desolation of the flood was still visible. Shem 
by the prophetic blessing of his father was made a prince 
over his brethren and their posterity. But when they 
had increased in numbers there was a great apostacy from 
God and rebellion against Shem ; for they said let us make 



THE DIVINE ME THOD 197 

us a Shem and they commenced the building of a tower 
whose summit should reach the sky — they started out in 
their disbelief to provide for themselves. This was the 
beginning of heathenism. But in the line descended from 
Shem we find Abraham. God called him to leave his 
native land and kindred and go to a land he knew not 
of, and "he arose and went" — he believed and obeyed. 
Here God gave him his word in a solemn covenant, a cov- 
enant that has made a deeper impression on history than 
all other influences combined. We are today rejoicing 
in its blessings and promises. "In thee and in thy seed 
shall all the families of the earth be blest," God said. 
Paul said that "seed was Christ." Abraham believed 
and obeyed in the ratification of the covenant and in 
every trial to which his faith was subjected, so that he 
was called the father of the believing. Concerning the 
offering of Isaac some are offended ; the Evolution of 
Christianity does not believe the story; but Isaac was a 
child of faith, given to Abraham against hope by an act 
of omnipotence, he was the only heir of the covenant, 
and Abraham's faith, shown in his purposed obedience, 
furnished the world with an object lesson having a double 
significance. For Isaac and his posterity the lesson 
taught was the unquestioning obedience of faith. Abra- 
ham no doubt suffered as any father suffers in the pros- 
pect of the death of an only son; but he suffered more 
and from higher considerations than ever entered any 
other human heart. He was the only heir who could in- 
herit the promises of the covenant, and yet God had given 
his word, and Abraham could not consent that he would 
lie : "If he wishes this son back again I know now that 



198 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

he can give me another.'' All the descendants of Abra- 
ham through Isaac could not fail to see that it was the 
unfaltering faith of their great ancestor that saved Isaac 
and hereby brought them within the provisions of the 
covenant. The other lesson is prophetic and points to the 
time when the true Seed would be led to calvary and 
would "make his life an offering for sin." There is an 
unearthliness in Abraham's answer to Isaac's question, 
" Where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" He replied, 
"My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt 
offering." May it not be that the "friend of God" was 
permitted to see God's own Son on calvary as "the lamb 
that taketh away the sins of the world." During this 
age from Adam to Moses the government and religion 
were patriarchal ; the father of the family was priest, seer 
and law-giver, and hence the dealings of God are di- 
rectly with the patriarchs. Several of the most distin- 
guished of these are mentioned, besides Abraham, like 
Melchisedek, Job, Jethro. 

But we pass over the names of individuals to study the 
organization of the posterity of Abraham as a nation. 
The same type of life is found here as in the garden and 
in all the individuals we have named. To begin with, 
Moses is selected and God gives him his word that he 
has come down to deliver his people from their afflictions 
in Egypt and says to him: "Come now, therefore, and 
I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring 
forth my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt." 
Moses is staggered by the magnitude of the proposition. 
But three signs are given him which confirm his own 
faith; but he fears that he will not be believed by his 



THE DIVINE METHOD 199 

kindred, and Jehovah instructs him to repeat the three 
.signs in the presence of the elders and they will believe 
that "the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, 
the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent him." 
The simple issue which Moses was prepared to meet 
when he called together the elders of Israel was whether 
they could be induced to follow Moses with the hope of 
escaping from Pharaoh. Then were given the ten plagues 
in which the Egyptians as well as Israel were made to 
know that Jehovah was the true God, because the power 
of the gods of Egypt was overthrown. 

The evidence which Jehovah presented to the minds 
and hearts of his people produced faith in the word sent 
to them by the mouth of Moses, and they obeyed it. 
They crossed the Red Sea in obedience to this faith, and 
after some trials encamped at the foot of Sinai. Here 
they receive a permanent national organization which 
continued in its essential features until about forty years 
after the Christian church was founded. The visible 
center of this organization was the tabernacle ; the invisi- 
ble center was Jehovah, who was for all time in a special 
and personal sense regarded as dwelling in the Holy of 
Holies, enthroned upon the mercy seat which the faith 
of the Christian now locates in heaven itself. This faith 
was not a sentiment, a superstition or fiction of the 
priests. It was well founded. For when the tabernacle 
was completed, Jehovah manifested his presence and ac- 
ceptance in a glory that filled the tabernacle and a cloud 
that covered it. This occurred in the sight of all Israel 
and produced such a faith that when the cloud rose the 
whole camp moved forward, and when it remained all 



200 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

Israel remained in their tents. This was the obedience 
of faith. And when a permanent location was found 
and the temple was built, according to the general plan 
of the tabernacle, its Holy of Holies became the visible 
dwelling place of the God of Israel in the same special, 
accommodated sense as it had been in the movable tent. 
And the great yearly assemblies of all the people, from 
distant lands even, is a sublime spectacle of the energy 
with which the lives of this wonderful race of men were 
controlled by the faith of their ancestors. 

Before we pass to the study of the Christian dispensa- 
tion, this seems to be the proper place for some state- 
ments that were withheld at the first. This type of life 
which we have just traced through four thousand years 
is simple, though fundamental, in determining the reli- 
gious conduct and growth of men. In its principle it is 
unchangeable, however much the conditions may change 
that produce it. The history of those who present the 
phenomena of "the obedience of faith" shows that they 
never understood that God, in whom they believed, was 
"within, in the soul of man," neither were his life nor 
"his laws inextricably woven together with the soul of 
man." God always approaches them from without as a 
distinct personality, gives them his word and confirms it 
by visible external signs ; and expects men to believe and 
obey him. This is the voluntary spontaneous response of 
the soul to divine evidence, presented in a message di- 
rectly from the mouth of the Lord or from the mouth of 
a chosen and accredited agent; and usually % the word is 
accompanied by visible signs and demonstrations suited 
to produce the conviction that God is its author. Thus 



THE DIVINE METHOD 201 

the phenomena of the spiritual life of the Old Testament 
saints are easily brought into causal connection among 
themselves. 

It will also become clear on a little reflection that "life" 
and "spiritual life" are very different things; and, espe- 
cially do both differ from the conception of "spiritual 
force resident in humanity." When simple life is away 
or extinct that in which it resided is dead, we say, it is 
no longer capable of any kind of motion. What it is 
that is gone we do not know. When simple life leaves 
the body it soon returns to its original elements; but 
not so in the case of the loss of spiritual life; for this 
life belongs to the soul and the soul is then said to be 
"dead in trespasses and in sins," or one is said "to be dead 
while living." There is no evidence that the soul can 
die in any other sense; but there is evidence from the 
beginning to the end of the Bible that spiritual life 
comes to the soul only through the obedience of the 
faith which Jehovah causes by a divine message accom- 
panied by divine proofs of its origin. Spiritual life, 
then, is not the soul of humanity, nor a force resident 
in humanity; it is a right, spontaneous, trusting, joyful 
movement towards the gracious, ever blessed Father of 
spirits — it is abiding in him and seeking to know and do 
his will. The personalities are distinct and for that very 
reason the blessedness of the relation is the greatest pos- 
sible. • 

Before taking up the methods pursued in the New Tes- 
tament let us try to bring the present antagonism to the 
simple, unquestioning obedience of faith in Jesus, as 



14 



202 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

Paul taught, and as the Old Testament taught, a little 
nearer to us. 

I fear that the fog and smoke of today's theories have 
obscured the incalculable value of the method by which 
the life of the church is produced. To suggest my mean- 
ing : "Suppose a brother whom you never saw, of whose 
history and death you were also ignorant, had made a 
will at his death by which you, on certain conditions, 
would be greatly benefited. He, before dying, commit- 
ted the knowledge of this will to a trusted friend, whom 
he had fully instructed in all its provisions. This friend 
undertakes to find the heirs. But before he reaches you 
he finds that there are robbers and murderers interested 
: n defeating the purposes of the will and that they intend 
to kill him. Before he dies, however, he prepares a sim- 
ple statement of the facts concerning your brother's birth, 
life and death, including the will, and accompanying it 
with instructions to guide you in securing your inherit- 
ance. After a long time a copy of this statement comes 
into your possession. You are glad and your first im- 
pulse is to proceed at once to comply with the instructions 
it contains. But the lawyers come in and you show 
them the statement, notwithstanding you understand it 
and you know it was meant for you. One of them says, 
"Had you not better investigate my theory concerning the 
original sources from which this statement has evidently 
(the theorist's clincher) been made up?" Another says, 
"Had you not better consider my theory concerning the 
possibility of the supernatural things spoken of in this 
document before you commit yourself to it?" Still an- 
other says with much emphasis, "I beg you to accept 



THE DIVINE METHOD 203 

my theory: That you are already in possession of the 
conditions upon which the enjoyment of your inheritance 
depends. " And in like manner others present their the- 
ories until you either accept the theories and throw away 
the only evidence you have that you ever had a brother 
that left a will in which you were most generously pro- 
vided for, or you reject all the theories and believe the 
only evidence on earth that you had a brother who in his 
dying moments remembered and loved you. 

Now let us TRACE THE TESTIMONY CON- 
CERNING JESUS, THE CHRIST. BACK INTO 
THE MINDS AND HEARTS OF THE APOSTLES. 
That testimony is in the writings of the ^lew Testament 
or we have no such testimony. 

The apostles understood that they were witnesses. 
Peter said on the day of Pentecost, *'1Ks Jesus did God 
raise up whereof we are all witnesses." Peter and John 
<Ad again, "Whether it be right in the sight of God to 
hearken unto you rather than unto God judge ye: for we 
cannot but speak the things which we saw and heard" 
Paul said in his defense at Jerusalem that Ananias said 
to Hm, "The God of our fathers hat!", appointed thee to 
know his v>ill, and to see the Righteous One and to hear 
a voice from his mouth. For thou shalt be a witness 
for him unto all men of what thou hast seen and heard." 
Tn I lie first letter to the Corinthians he says that after 
his resurrection Christ "appeared to Cephas, then to the 
twelve, then he appeared to above five hundred brethren 
at once, then to James, then to all the apostles, and last of 
all to me." 



204 THE E VOL UTION THEOR Y 

These are distinct appearances enough to fix the per- 
sonal identity of Jesus, after his resurrection, in the 
minds of his chosen witnesses with infallible certainty ; and 
the number of witnesses is so great that their testimony 
is entitled to the acceptance and belief of all ages. No 
theory originating 1900 years since these witnesses lived, 
and impeaching the witnesses, can be entertained with 
due regard for the qualification of the witnesses and the 
nature of the testimony which they bore. For, in the 
nature of things, the momentous events about which they 
testify could not be repeated, and they are not the legiti- 
mate subjects of speculation, or hypothetical explanation, 
so long after the witnesses have passed away. They 
either occurred as testified or they did not occur at all. 
The supernatural cannot be confined to the limits of 
finite speculation; but the supernatural is the chief ele- 
ment of apostolic testimony. 

But let us see how precious this testimony was to the 
witnesses. John wrote, "That which was from the be- 
ginning, that which we have heard, that which we have 
seen with our eyes, that which we beheld and our hands 
handled concerning the word of life (and the life was 
manifested, and we have seen and bear witness, and de- 
clare unto you the life, the eternal life, which was with 
the Father and was manifested unto us), that which we 
have seen and heard declare we unto you also." Paul 
said, "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that 
the exceeding greatness of the pozver may be of God, and 
not from ourselves." And hence he could say, "But 
though we or an angel from heaven should preach unto 



THE DIVINE METHOD 205 

you any gospel contrary to that which we preached unto 
you let him be anathema." 

The intense anxiety with which Paul committed this 
treasure, "the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Christ," to those who were to 
succeed him in the "ministry of the gospel," can be seen 
in his language to Timothy, saying, "And the things 
which thou hast heard from me among many witnesses, 
the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able 
to teach others also." Again he said, "/ charge thee in 
the sight of God and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the 
quick and the dead, and by his appearing and his king- 
dom, PREACH THE WORD;" for he knew that the 
time would come when they would not endure the sound 
doctrine, but would multiply teachers to suit their own 
lusts. John in closing his revelation said, "I testify unto 
every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this 
book, if any man shall add unto them, God shall add 
unto him the plagues which are written in this book ; and 
if any man shall take away from the words of the book 
of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the 
tree of life, and out of the holy city, even the things 
which are written in this book." 

But why this profound regard for their testimony, 
this all-subduing consciousness of being witnesses for 
Christ. Paul says in another place, "My speech and my 
preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but 
in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your 
faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the 
power of God." Again, "we received not the spirit of 
the world but the spirit which is of God, that we might 



206 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

know the things that are freely given to us by God. 
Which things also we speak not in words which man's 
wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth." Thus 
a broad and unmistakable distinction is made between 
the theories and wisdom of men as a source of knowledge 
and the revelation made to the apostles by the Holy 
Spirit, as the only source of the knowledge of the wisdom 
and purpose of God. This language of Paul could be 
exemplified in many other scriptures, but it is unnecessary 
to add here what the reader will readily find. 

It is important to note, however, that this work of 
teaching the apostles by the Holy Spirit would be regard- 
ed the more seriously by them and would naturally im- 
pose a more sacred obligation upon them to teach others 
the same things, when they remembered the words of 
their Master, saying, "When he, the Spirit of truth, is 
come, he shall guide you into all the truth ; for he shall 
not speak from himself; but whatsoever things he shall 
hear, these shall he speak; and he shall declare unto you 
the things that are to come. He shall glorify me; for 
he shall take of mine and shall declare it unto you." He 
began this work in the miraculous demonstration of his 
presence and power on the day of Pentecost. His per- 
sonal interposition as a witness, sent according to the 
promise of Christ, is unquestionably one of the controlling 
factors in the consciousness of the apostles from that day 
onward. He was with them as a witness confirming their 
testimony by signs and wonders. And when their ma- 
lignant persecutors were pressing them hard, they re- 
plied, "We must obey God rather than man. The God of 
our fathers raised up Jesus whom ye slew, hanging him 



THE DIVINE METHOD 207 

on a tree. Him did God exalt at his right hand, to be a 
Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and 
remission of sins. And we are witnesses of these things; 
and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to them 
that obey him." 

One more step: The universally admitted rule that 
the character of distinguished and specially qualified wit- 
nesses is entitled to be received with great weight added 
to the testimony they bear. Now if there are any wit- 
nesses at all who have testified concerning Christ and 
enumerated the facts in his life, death, resurrection and 
exaltation, one of those witnesses is the Holy Spirit. 
And the Holy Spirit is infallible — "He is the Spirit of 
Truth." He was given without measure to Jesus, and by 
Him He wrought the miracles of His public ministry. He 
said to the unbelieving Jew, "If I by the spirit of God 
cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon 
you." And on the day of Pentecost this same Spirit 
comes to the disciples of Jesus according to promise and 
identifies himself with them in delivering their testimony. 
To appreciate his advent to the little company of waiting 
believers we must read his own explanation of the event 
by the mouth of Peter. "Being therefore at the right 
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father 
the promise of the Holy Spirit, he (Jesus) hath poured 
forth this, which ye see and hear." Let us consider well 
what this proposition contains. First, however, let it be re- 
membered that the personal, objective testimony of the 
Holy Spirit is of no value in the estimation of the the- 
orist. The theorist does not hesitate to impeach the 
Spirit for the sole purpose of getting rid of miraculous 



208 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

external interpositions. But can the theory lay hold 
upon the invisible things that occur at the right hand of 
God ? Who among men knows the things of God — who 
could testify concerning the exaltation of the Son at the 
right hand of the Father? So that this most sublime 
and potential truth in our knowledge of Christ and his 
glory would have remained unknown to us but for the 
testimony of the Holy Spirit. And Christ sends him to 
his praying, waiting disciples for the purpose of adding 
his testimony and confirming theirs. And that the prom- 
ise of Jesus might be fulfilled he receives the Holy Spirit 
of the Father that he may send him forth on this special 
ministry, as he taught his disciples while he was with 
them in the world : "But when the Comforter is come 
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the 
spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he 
shall bear witness of me; and bear ye also witness, be- 
cause ye have been with me from the beginning." And 
now if testimony acquires importance from the unim- 
peachable character of those concerned in bearing it, what 
must we say of a theory that robs witnesses of the qualifi- 
cations which are everywhere in the New Testament Scrip- 
tures attributed to them; and converts the profound con- 
sciousness of being qualified and commissioned to bear 
testimony concerning the things which their Master did 
and taught, into an impersonal evolution, extravagant 
enthusiasm, the creation of a myth, the result of rearing 
a superstructure "upon a substructure" whose existence is 
wholly omitted from all they have written and is equally 
unknown to history. What! Did not the Holy Spirit 
come from the presence of the Father? Did not the risen 



THE DIVINE METHOD 209 



and exalted Savior send him according to promise ? Was 
he not prepared to answer the question uppermost in every 
believing heart when the cloud received their risen Lord 
out of sight? Did not the sons of the prophets wander 
over the mountains in search of Elijah? And how many 
who had followed Christ from John's baptism to the as- 
cension would have been overwhelmed with doubts and 
lost in theories had not the Holy Spirit come to testify 
that their Master was with God at his right hand. These 
things about which the Spirit and the apostles bear testi- 
mony are not conditions already in the possession of the 
race slumbering in "the inner consciousness," waiting for 
evolution. 

Still another step : The subject matter of the tes- 
timony of the Spirit and the apostles was not of human 
origin. They comprehended this matter under what Je- 
sus did and taught. But a few passages out of many 
need be quoted here. 

Concerning his works Jesus said : "But the witness 
which I receive is not from men . . . for the works 
which the Father hath given me to accomplish, the very 
works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath 
sent me." Again, "the works that I do in my Father's 
name, these bear witness of me." Again he shows his 
willingness to deal fairly with the unbelieving, saying, "If 
I do not the works of my Father, believe me not," i. e., 
that he was the Son of God. A divine proposition must 
have divine proof to sustain it, and Christ offers to our 
hearts divine works, supernatural deeds* — not theories. 
If a theory could produce divine faith, Christ could have 
invented better ones than are put forward now 1900 



210 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 



years since he committed the testimony concerning his 
being the Son of God to the human heart. He died for 
bearing this testimony. 

Concerning his teaching, Christ said : "He that 
sent me is true and the things which I heard from him, 
these speak I unto the world." Again, "My teaching 
is not mine, but his that sent me." And again, "When ye 
have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that 
I am he, and that I do nothing of myself, but as the 
Father taught me, I speak these things. And he that 
sent me is with me; he hath not left me alone; for I do 
always the things that are pleasing to him. ... I 
speak the things which I have seen with my Father. 
. . . Now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you 
the truth which I heard from God." 

For preaching and teaching these things done and 
taught by their Master the disciples also were persecuted, 
hated, scourged, stoned, imprisoned, beheaded, exiled; 
and the churches which they left behind them suffered 
every cruelty, torture and death the fiendish ingenuity of 
their enemies, both Jews and Gentiles, could invent, for 
nearly four hundred years. No pity was shown them in 
the ten bloody persecutions under the emperors of Rome, 
and finally the tragedies culminated in the effort of Julian 
the apostate to exterminate them and restore the idol- 
atrous worship of the old empire. 

Now what motive could have influenced men who did 
not see and hear these things, to invent them and proclaim, 
them as though they were eye-witnesses of them, in the 
face of such opposition, persecution and death? Their 
consciousness of the truthfulness of their testimony must 



THE DIVINE METHOD 211 

have been stronger than their fears of their enemies, and 
even death itself. If the Gospel is a myth, an evolution, 
an invention or a lie, they could easily have escaped all 
these horrors by telling the truth. 

Again, how can we account for the impious audacity 
that must have controlled these false witnesses — if they 
were false — while fabricating a story that made God, His 
Son and the Holy Spirit accomplices with them in orig- 
inating and propagating their own inventions ? How can 
a consciousness of falsehood invent the most perfect sys- 
tem of truth to be found in our world — a thing which 
reverent, truth-loving men would not dare to undertake? 

But the theorist explains by saying there is no objective 
truth; all truth is subjective. Hence "The Absolute Be- 
ing, the God of man, is man's own being. . . The 
knowledge of God is the knowledge of ourselves, for the 
religious object is within us. . . The Christian reli- 
gion is the relation of man to his own being as to an- 
other being. . . . Religion is the dream of the hu- 
man soul." So that the theory which is here substi- 
tuted for testimony is the monstrous absurdity of "the 
absolute identity of the subject and object" or, as Prof. 
Stowe interprets it, "the absolute identity of the thing 
perceiving and the thing perceived." And he adds by 
way of application : "Is God the creator of man, or is 
man the Creator of God? The latter of course. The 
human mind is the only development of God ; only by the 
workings of the human soul does God arrive at self* 
consciousness, and if there were no men there would be 
no God." 



212 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

Such a conception of the relation between God and man 
does "set aside all secondary causes !" God takes direct 
and forcible possession of man; and instead of the sub- 
lime conception of him, given the prophet in the words: 
"Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eter- 
nity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy 
place, with him, also, that is of a contrite and humble 
spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the 
heart of the contrite ones" — instead of this the Evolution 
of Christianity teaches us to think of "the life of God," 
"God himself, his personal presence and power, in the 
turbid stream of the life of humanity, the pure indistin- 
guishably united with the impure, man and God in very 
essence one." A philosophy that degrades God to ele- 
vate man is a philosophy that will not hesitate to deify 
man, a fact found as we have shown in both ancient and 
modern speculation. 

On the other hand, the divine method of begetting spir- 
itual life exalts the faith and hope and love of the heart 
of man to a high and holy personality; and Solomon 
prayed at the dedication of the temple: "But will God 
indeed dwell on the earth? behold the heaven and heaven 
of heavens cannot contain thee ; how much less this house 
that I have builded ?" Thus the whole field of the imag- 
ination is purified and enlarged. It is no longer filled 
with the vile and corrupting conceptions of the heathen. 
The affections are also elevated and the humble and con- 
trite heart is comforted by him who sees the sparrow's 
fall and numbers the hairs of our head. 

Christ did not degrade this conception. He intensified 
it, made the angels in heaven our anxious friends, God 



THE DIVINE METHOD 213 

our Father, and heaven our home. The old Jerusalem 
becomes the New and the Lord God and the Lamb are 
its light. The sun and the moon have ceased to be and 
a new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness 
dwells, mark the consummation of Jehovah's purpose 
to destroy the works of the devil through his Son. We 
know more of heaven since the Son came into our world 
from the glory he had with the Father before our world 
was, and Christ provided that this knowledge should not 
be lost. The same method is pursued to preserve this 
full, glorious conception of the Father as we have seen 
from the beginning. Christ gives the Father's word, and 
in that special sense is named the Word, and in his works 
presents the proofs that the Father sent him and "gave 
him commandment what he should say." He demon- 
strated his claim to being sent into the world as the 
Son of God by the most remarkable series of exhibitions 
of power the eyes of mortals ever witnessed. Sampson 
in the temple of Dagon was blind and had to be led to the 
pillars on which the vast structure rested. But Christ 
needed no guide. He acted like one at home in a house 
^f his own building. He began at the foundation and re- 
vealed his dominion over the mineral world, and that his 
power was the equivalent of all the processes of the life 
of the vine. The fig tree, notwithstanding its luxuriant 
growth, furnished the demonstration that all plant life 
was subject to his will. The wonderful draught of fishes 
and the not-ridden beast on which he made his entry into 
Jerusalem, exhibit his control of the animal instincts; 
his feeding the multitudes with a few loaves and fishes 
reveals his power over the chemical and atomic constitu- 



214 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

tion of the bodies of both plants and animals when life 
is gone. 

He never hesitated nor played the magician; he gave 
thanks, distributed to his disciples and they to those who 
were set down. All eyes witnessed it, and they could 
not have been deceived in eating. But man was the great 
object of his coming. He demonstrated his authority to 
save from sin by first saving from its visible effects. He 
healed all manner of diseases of the body and brought back 
life to the dead, even calling Lazarus back after being four 
days in the grave. The unseen forces that beat upon us 
in the storm and the waves were subdued to a great calm 
by his command. The demons and evil influences from 
the unseen world under the control of Satan surrendered 
their victims at his word. Gravitation even acknowl- 
edged the power of his will while he walked upon the 
waves. And thus the whole area of human experience 
and observation, hopes and fears, was touched by his 
presence and by his power. These demonstrations prove 
that he knew the way to the pillars on which the material 
universe rests and that all its forces are subject to his 
will. 

There is one question not yet answered by his works : 
the great question concerning life and the future. Jesus 
had the power over life as well as over death. He said, 
"No man taketh it from me, I lay it down myself. I 
have power to lay it down and I have power to take it 
again." He died on the cross, was buried, rose from the 
grave and ascended, being received by a cloud out of the 
sight of his disciples. And now a problem is presented 



THE DIVINE METHOD 215 



that no human being can solve. The method by which 
it is solved deserves most careful attention. Christ had 
given His word that they who believed upon him would 
have eternal life, that He would raise them up at the last 
day and prayed: "Father, I will that they also, whom 
thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they 
may behold my glory, which thou hast given me; for 
thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." 
The visible personal manifestations of his mediatorial of- 
fice between the Father and men while he was with them 
were a ground of assurance that will never be shaken ; 
but He is now out of sight — an object of faith, a memory 
that eclipses all other experiences- What is in this new re- 
lation? We will find the answer in perfect agreement 
with the method observed in all other communications 
from God to man; and we will trace it from the begin- 
ning. The world's Jubilee begins with the day on which 
we get this answer. 

The Holy Spirit came according to the promise of the 
Master on the day of Pentecost and the apostles were 
so completely under his power that "they began to speak 
with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." 

So that the Church of Christ, after his ascension, was 
under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, sent forth from 
heaven, after Christ had returned and at the right hand 
of his Father assumed the universal dominion given to 
him. The sermon here reported as Peter's was pro- 
claimed by him as the Spirit gave him utterance. And 
in his first letter he says: "To whom (the prophets) 
it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto you, 



216 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

did they minister these things, which now have been an- 
nounced unto you through them that preached the gospel 
unto you in the Holy Spirit sent forth from heaven." 
So that the ministry of the apostles continued to be in the 
Holy Spirit, and whatever they did and taught to bring 
men into Christ and hence, also, into the enjoyment of 
spiritual life, was still under his guidance and with his 
approval. Christ had promised them that the spirit of 
truth would come to them to guide them into all truth 
and bring to their remembrance all things that he had 
said to them while with them. 

The influence exerted upon the minds and hearts of 
the many thousands of. "devout Jews from every nation 
under heaven, at this time dwelling at Jerusalem," was 
from three sources. The twelve witnesses were com- 
petent, because, they said, "Who have companied with us 
all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out 
among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto the 
day that he was received up from us, of these must one 
become a witness with us (the eleven) of his resurrec- 
tion." Luke, who wrote the Acts of the apostles records, 
the names of the eleven the same as found elsewhere in 
the New Testament and gives Matthias as the name of 
the witness selected to fill the vacancy made by the treason 
and death of Judas. This narrative of the labors and ex- 
periences of the apostles contains internal evidences of its 
historical accuracy that have never been shaken. Who is 
bold enough to affirm that Luke is mistaken as to the 
names and qualifications of these witnesses? And if their 
qualifications were as here stated, then they were com- 
petent witnesses in any court in the world and their tes- 



THE DIVINE METHOD 217 

timony embraces the original sayings and doings of Christ 
their beloved Master, for whom they suffered the loss of 
all things even life itself, up to the last moment of his stay 
on earth, when he was received up from them out of 
sight. 

First The testimony of the prophets is arrayed with 
telling effect. Joel removes the false interpretation 
of the miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit, at- 
tributing them to drunkenness, and shows that God had 
promised to pour out his spirit upon all flesh in the last 
days. Also the prophecies of David concerning his resur- 
rection and the oath of God concerning the heir to his 
throne. 

Second. Having charged home upon the audience be- 
fore him the lawless crucifixion and slaying of Jesus of 
Nazareth, whom God had approved unto them by mighty 
works and wonders and signs, which God had done by him 
in their midst as they themselves also knew, Peter then 
affirms that God raised him from the dead and presents 
in proof the prophecy of David and the testimony of the 
twelve chosen witnesses and others present. 

Third. But now the speaker reaches a proposition 
of whose truth there was no competent witness on earth 
— that this same Jesus Christ whom they had crucified 
and slain had been exalted to the right hand of God. He 
formulates his proposition thus : "Let all the house of 
Israel, therefore, know assuredly that God hath made him 
both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified." 
The Holy Spirit is offered as the witness in support of this 
indictment, so terrible to every Jew. And the speaker 
connects the visible and audible testimony of the witness 

15 



218 THE E VOL UTION THEOR Y 

with the proposition in this way: "Being therefore by 
the right hand of God exalted, and having received of 
the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he hath 
poured forth this which ye see and hear." The testimony 
of the Holy Spirit was addressed to the senses as well 
as to the understanding; to the former in the sound as of a 
rushing mighty wind and in the parted tongues of fire ; to 
the latter in the sixteen different tongues in which the 
apostles gave their testimony, to meet the wants of the 
many thousands in the audience before them. The Holy 
Spirit does not forsake the method pursued from the be- 
ginning — the divine message accompanied by the divine 
external proof. 

In this narrative of what was done on the day of 
Pentecost the competency of the witnesses, as claimed, 
must be admitted. The apostles had personal knowledge 
of the matters about which they testify from the beginning 
to the end of the earthly stay of their Master, and the Holy 
Spirit came from the presence of the Father, of whom the 
risen and exalted Christ received him, and sent him ac- 
cording to a promise made to his chosen witnesses and 
heralds while with them, to join his testimony with theirs. 
The testimony is complete, therefore, concerning the Son 
of Mary, the Son of God, from the manger to the tomb, 
and from the tomb to the throne. This is what the writ- 
ers of the books of the New Testament understood con- 
cerning the matter so important to them and for which 
they died. 

Now here is a case in which the chief proposition lies 
entirely beyond the range of human testimony — beyond 
the range of the observation of mortals. His position is 



THE DIVINE METHOD 219 

described by another apostle in these words : "Where- 
fore, also, God highly exalted him and gave unto him the 
name which is above every name; that in the name of 
Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and 
things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every 
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the 
glory of God the Father." This conception of the posi- 
tion to which Christ was exalted was at the beginning 
and is still the most firmly planted and hence also the 
most powerful thought in the minds of believers. How 
came it there? There must have been an interposition by 
a witness from the throne on which Jesus sat at the right 
hand of God. Here are the divine proposition and the 
divine proof, so related as to furnish an irrefutable ground 
for faith. This cannot be a human fiction. Let anyone 
try to construct such a narrative de novo and he will find 
the difficulty of obtaining credit for his invention insur- 
mountable. These details must have been related to each 
other as stated. No theory denying the causal connection 
in which these phenomena stand among themselves as 
here related can furnish a rational account of their origin. 
Besides the motive of the narrative, to combine the tes- 
timony of the witnesses and the accompanying divine 
endorsement, is in perfect agreement with the divine 
method from the beginning. God does no violence to the 
nature he gave man, but maintains its perfect freedom. 
The proposition to be believed, "God hath made him both 
Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye have crucified and 
slain," is stated and accompanied by the divine corrobora- 
tion. Thus this sublime truth enters human history in 
harmony with the divine method and the nature of the 



220 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

human soul. If the day of Pentecost could be torn out 
of its place in history with all it represents, it would pre- 
sent a gap that would cut off the present from the past 
and leave the most important phenomena of the Christian 
church without explanation. Remove the testimony of 
the Holy Spirit on this day and the lives of the martyrs, 
missionaries and heroes of faith in all the relations of 
life become impossible. The proposition that this truth 
was revealed in consciousness and was not presented in 
the external events, recorded as occurring on Pentecost, 
is absurd, because it contradicts the divine method pur- 
sued for more than four thousand years and contradicts 
the universally accepted principles of mental philosophy. 
In view of the phenomena traceable to this day, what ex- 
cuse has any man for saying : "Even inspired teaching, 
and all the forms in which it may utter itself, and all the 
articulated knowledge of which it is the expression, are 
evanescent." 

But, again, the apostle Peter fulfilled a very significant 
mission in his own person on the day of Pentecost. Christ 
had given him the keys of the kingdom of heaven with the 
accompanying assurance that what he "bound on earth 
should be bound in heaven and what he loosed on earth 
should be loosed in heaven." Now having proved by evi- 
dence that his hearers saw and heard that the same Jesus 
whom they had crucified and slain, God had made both 
Lord and Christ; they seem to have interpreted him, so 
deeply were their hearts pierced by the conviction that 
they had murdered their long expected Messiah; "and 
they said unto Peter and the rest of the apostles : Brethren 
what shall we do?" We must now pause for a moment 



THE DIVINE METHOD 221 

before considering Peter's answer to consider the situation 
of these hearers. Does the law of "continuous progres- 
sive change" obtain here? 

They evidently believe that they are implicated in the 
murder of their Messiah; also, they believe that God has 
exalted him and made him Lord and Christ. This places 
them at an immeasurable, hopeless distance from him. 
He is on the throne now and they are his murderers. 
The law provided no remedy. The only thing they could 
expect was the wrath of their murdered king. But, to 
make the case more hopeless, if even the law had provided 
a sacrifice or an offering or any other act requiring the 
services of the priests, especially that of the high-priest, 
they were barred from entering the temple or approach- 
ing the altar by their active and malicious participation in 
the lawless trial, condemnation and death of Jesus, who 
was at that moment shown to be at the right hand of God. 
In such a state, and guilty of such a crime, the case of 
the Jew seemed most hopeless. He experienced what 
Christ meant when he said : "It is finished." The suffer- 
ing Savior did not mean the end of his physical agony 
alone. He meant that in his death the Mosaic institution 
ended — that he "had taken it out of the way, nailing it 
to his cross." The representatives of the Mosaic insti- 
tution were found bankrupt — they had demonstrated the 
inability of man to administer it. They had defeated the 
purpose of its founding from their own standpoint and 
killed the only being on earth who could and did .fulfill 
every detail of its law. 

The Jew was cut off, therefore, from the favor of God ; 
and the world, by his crime, was robbed of its Mediator 



222 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

between God and man. Most momentous interests center 
in the answer which this question shall bring : Brethren, 
what shall we do? 

There had been no example given to the world yet, by 
divine direction, how sinful men might be saved under the 
reign of the Messiah. The testimony is now all in and 
is sufficient to produce that faith that admits that he is 
now king in fact and has taken his throne in harmony 
with the covenant made with David. What will be the 
answer dictated by the Holy Spirit, the messenger just 
arrived from the presence of the King and presenting 
credentials that could not be rejected? There is no 
time to wait for the tardy pace of the evolution nor to 
establish utility by experience. Here are men, as in every 
case of conviction since, whose pierced hearts cry out for 
help — salvation from the consequences and guilt of their 
immeasurable crime. 

The answer came promptly and presented immediate 
relief upon conditions that had never been heard of before. 
And Peter said unto them, "Repent ye, and be baptized 
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto (into) 
the remission of your sins ; and you shall receive the gift 
of the Holy Spirit." And we are informed : "They 
then that received his word were baptized, and there were 
added unto them in that day about three thousand souls." 
The reception of the Spirit is proven by their changed 
lives; for they continued steadfastly in the apostles' teach- 
ing and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and the pray- 
ers." They also made provision for the needy among 
them by selling property to supply the apostles with the 
resources necessary to distribute among them. "And 



THE DIVINE METHOD 223 



day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the 
temple, and breaking bread at home, they did eat their 
food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, 
and having favor with all the people." Here is the enthu- 
siasm, joy and gratitude of men entering upon a new life. 
Their sins no longer oppress them with guilt and fear — 
they praise God in his temple. The new life begins where 
the prophet said it would more than seven centuries 
before. He said, "And it shall come to pass in the last 
days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be estab- 
lished in the top of the mountains and shall be exalted 
above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And 
many people shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up 
to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of 
Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk 
in his paths; for out of Zion shall go forth the law and 
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." 

"The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus" found its 
first universal expression in the life of the congregation 
formed from the converts made by the preaching of Peter 
on the day of Pentecost. 

And if it is possible to increase the interest in the events 
ai this day we may recall the prophecy of Daniel : "In 
the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a 
kingdom, which shall never be destroyed." The events 
of Pentecost fulfill this prophecy. They proclaim as king 
the Son of God, whose throne is at the right hand of God ! 
they proclaim the conditions of submission to him, faith, 
repentance and baptism in the name of the King, Jesus 
Christ; they proclaim the favor of the King, the remission 
of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. These provisions 



224 THE EVOLUTION THEORY 

are made in the word given to Peter by the king himself : 
"I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; 
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound 
in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall 
be loosed in heaven." Peter has fulfilled the trust com- 
mitted to him, and the King on the throne is pledged to 
sustain what his ambassador said and commanded to be 
done; of which he furnishes the evidence in the miracu- 
lous presence of the Holy Spirit. A spiritual empire thus 
enters human life, having a divine Head, a citizenship 
which is in heaven by the obedience of faith, a visible 
body on earth where two or three, even, are gathered 
together in the name of the King, a constitution which 
is perfect, rules perfectly suited to enforce it, and by the 
King's command his subjects are sent to all nations to 
preach the message the Father sent by his Son, and the 
divine proofs by which he corroborated it. Thus the 
world's jubilee was inaugurated and heaven and earth 
are one in its proclamation. And the prophecy of Isaiah, 
which Christ said was fulfilled in his day or ministry, goes 
on in its purpose in the spirit and life of the church. The 
divine method of reaching the heart and understanding 
of humanity has always been and is still, by means of 
external expressions of his thoughts and feelings, com- 
mitted to agents who bear them to others. He does not 
do violence to the constitution of the soul of man by forc- 
ing him to "know God directly and immediately." On 
the contrary, the divine method employs external an- 
nouncements, external agents and external proofs, and 
exalts man to the dignity of being a co-worker with God. 
Paul said: "Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, 



THE DIVINE METHOD 225 

as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in 
Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God." And in this 
same spirit the prophet said : "The spirit of the Lord God 
is upon me ; because the Lord hath annointed me to preach 
good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up 
the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and 
the opening of the prison to them that are bound ; to pro- 
claim the acceptable year of the Lord" — the year of 
Jubilee. 

In closing this answer to the Evolution of Christianity 
it is sufficient to state the propositions maintained in the 
affirmative part of it. 

My general affirmation is, that the assumption of the 
Evolution of Christianity are not sustained by the facts 
of the material world as far as they are known; nor by 
the phenomena of the heathen mind as we know them 
in the degeneration of the intellect and of the sensibilities ; 
nor by the spirit that animated the three great world 
movements known as Heathenism, Judaism and Christi- 
anity; nor by the divine method of producing and pre- 
serving spiritual life in the soul. 

The Old Testament and the New agree in representing 
the same type of life as pleasing to God and receiving his 
favor — "the obedience of faith." From the Creation 
until Christ, the faith was in God ; after Christ, it was in 
"Christ, the Son of the living God." 

The faith was secured by Jehovah's giving his word 
until Christ came, then Christ gave his Father's word, 
and, from the beginning until Pentecost, the divine mes- 
sage was confirmed by divine signs and wonders and 
mighty deeds. So that they who refuse to believe, or 



226 THE E VOL UTION THEOR Y 

who remove the conditions of belief, make God a liar ; and 
hence the wrath of God abides on them who believe not. 

The entrance upon this life, the obedience of faith, is 
made by being baptized into the name of the Father and 
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus 
Christ. As seen on the day of Pentecost the proposition 
believed was followed by repentance, because of the con- 
viction of having participated in the murder of the Mes- 
siah and the obedience in baptism was a full surrender to 
his authority; and by combining in the natural order, 
faith, repentance and obedience in the action of baptism 
in the name of Jesus Christ bring in the names of these 
three divine persons. 

When a right revelation is established by the obedience 
of faith between man, and the Father, Son and Holy 
Spirit, then 'follows the assurance of the remission of sins 
and the gift of the Holy Spirit. The perfection of this 
new life "by a faithful continuance in well doing" brings 
its possessor into the full enjoyment of "immortality and 
eternal life." And it is impossible to conceive how there 
can be peace and joy and holiness in heaven if any other 
type of life is made the standard of fitness. 

The assumptions of the Evolution of Christianity, 
therefore, fall to the ground for the lack of evidence of 
their application in the universe of matter; in the move- 
ments of the heathen mind, in the movements of the 
nations and of the Christian church; and especially the 
assumption of the existence of spiritual life in humanity is 
unfounded ; because it contradicts the fact that God has 
consistently maintained a method of his own for the pro- 
duction and support of spiritual life in the soul from the 



THE DIVINE METHOD 227 

creation of man to the present; and, instead of evolving 
"his own life inseparably woven together with the soul 
of man," he has provided the conditions necessary to the 
creation of a new type of life in all men, a spontaneous, 
trusting movement of the soul into the favor of the true 
God — the universal type of life, "the obedience of faith 
among all nations" 



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